I'm Under The Milk Crate Tonight
by The Masked Penguin
Summary: A drunk Chris reveals to Gordie and Teddy that he's gay; how will they take it? And the best is yet to come: Chris has his sights set on Gordie! Complete
1. A Mindless Game of Poker

Chris stretched out on the bed he'd long since outgrown. His feet hit the endpost, but he hardly noticed. It was routine now- he hadn't laid down and *not* hit the bedpost in years.  
For some odd reason, his thoughts drifted to Gordie, who was going on a date with his girlfriend tonight. Gordie didn't belong with Anne, he thought to himself, though he had no reasoning as to why.  
In Chris's mind, no one ever belonged with Gordie. Until now, he hadn't realized it, but Sue, Kristen, Justine, Cara. . . all wrong for him.  
  
Why did he care? Normal boys didn't think this way about their best friends. . .  
A floating head in his window interrupted his thoughts.  
"Aaaah!"  
"Christ, Chris, it's just me!"  
"Gordie, knock on the fucking door next time!"  
"Lemme in, dammit!" It had not yet occurred to him that Gordie was hanging out of his second story bedroom window, unaided except for the trellis climbing up the side of the house. Chris jumped up from the bed and to the window in surprise.  
"Sorry, man," he mumbled as the littler boy tumbled headfirst into his bedroom headfirst with a small "Oomph."  
"God, what are you, French?"  
"Gordie, what the-"  
"Hey, how do I look?" Gordie cut in, sweeping his hair across his forehead in what he obviously thought was a very sexy gesture. Chris, however, noticing that it looked rather like a penguin, couldn't do anything but giggle.  
"Gordie, don't you have some Protestant to screw?" Gordie glared. "Besides, why the hell are you over here asking me if you look good? Look in a mirror!"  
"Well, my mirror broke, and-"  
Chris snickered.  
"Shut up, not like that, asshole. I *dropped* it."  
Waiting for him to finish, Chris crossed his arms expectantly. Gordie sighed.  
"Curling my hair."  
"I KNEW it!" Chris laughed triumphantly.  
"you've always been a hermaphrodite, Chambers."  
"Fuck off." But Chris was grinning as he scooted over to make room on his bed. Gordie flopped down.  
"So, Lachance," Chris said, looking at him sideways through slitted eyes, "what happened? I thought you and Anne had a date tonight."  
Gordie sighed. "Anne and I broke up," he muttered, eyes downcast, and Chris's heart leapt.  
  
"That's rough, man," Chris commented mildly. If only I cared.  
  
"Yeah, it sucks," Gordie agreed, but he didn't seem that interested.  
  
"Well we seem crushed," Chris admonished. "Come on, Lachance." He stood up.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"Teddy's. I was gonna head over there anyway, to play poker, but then you showed up- if I get too hard up, I'll bet you."  
  
"Teddy wouldn't want me anyway."  
  
"No one wants you, Lachance. And Teddy might want you more than you'd think."  
  
"Ha. Teddy wants my ass."  
  
"Yup." Chris sighed. "Teddy wants everyone's ass."  
  
"Especially mine."  
  
"Especially yours."  
  
Why are we talking about his ass? Chris couldn't help but wonder to himself as they headed downstairs, tossing a quick goodbye to his mother, who didn't really seem to care that there were two boys in her house instead of one.  
  
"Where's Eyeball?" Gordie asked as they walked down the driveway, kicking rocks. "Isn't he like related to you or something?"  
  
"No, asshole, he's a tea party friend of my mothers."  
  
"Well then where is he?"  
  
"Out. With Ace. And a girl."  
  
"Protestant?"  
  
"You know it."  
  
The rest of the walk to Teddy's was quiet. They passed a few friends, but no words were said. Gordie somehow managed to kick the exact same pop can all the way to his friend's house.  
  
They knocked on the door of a shack that seemed to be falling in on itself. Teddy's house had never been known for it's wonderful upkeep.  
  
To their shock, instead of their buddy answering, a blonde came to the door, looking a little... disheveled. A few seconds later, a dazed Teddy followed.  
  
"I'm having company," he announced smugly to Chris and Gordie, then laughed hysterically at the well-endowed girl in his doorway. He winked exaggeratedly.  
  
"Uh, Teddy? We... uh... if you're ... um, busy, we can come back..."  
  
"Nah, it's good," Teddy said, with a flick of his hand. He turned to the girl. "Go home."  
  
"What the hell?"  
  
"Go home."  
  
Chris looked at Teddy. "Moron. Never order a hooker around."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"They carry guns." Gordie nodded fervently beside him.  
  
"Do you carry a gun?" Teddy asked the hooker matter-of-factly. She shook her head.  
  
"Hah. Go home." The third time seemed to be the charm, as the hooker sent him a look of daggers and flounced down his driveway.  
  
"How the hell did you afford a hooker?"  
  
"I hocked my mom's wedding ring."  
  
"Great."  
  
Teddy led them inside and they all sat around a small, musty old table. Teddy got the cards, always in the same place, quickly, and he set them down on the table beside the chips that Gordie had brought.  
  
They played a few quick games, but the conversation that took place after the abundant amounts of whiskey had been passed around was much more interesting than any of the games.  
  
"Chris, would you screw a guy if you got paid a hundred dollars?"  
  
"Hell yeah."  
  
"Seriously?" Teddy frowned, homophobe that he was.  
  
"Uh, yeah- you wouldn't for a hundred bucks?"  
  
Teddy shook his head violently.  
  
"You? I thought you would screw anything with legs, Duchamp!"  
  
"Anything with legs and a chest," Teddy corrected.  
  
"I have a chest," a proud, drunk Gordie announced, throwing a small, thin chest out for everyone to appreciate.  
  
"Congratulations, Gord," Chris slurred, and winked strongly at Teddy.  
  
Teddy looked at Gordie and amended, "Anything with legs, a chest, and a-"  
  
"Okay, Teddy."  
  
Drunk Gordie mumbled something incoherent about Teddy screwing up the ass.  
  
"If there's anyone here who doesn't screw up the ass it's me," Teddy corrected sternly. "You two probably screw up the ass."  
  
Chris leaned over to Gordie. "Do you screw up the ass, Gordie?" he asked romantically. Gordie nodded and smiled drunkenly.  
  
"I like beer."  
  
"That's great, Gordie."  
  
"No, I mean, I really like beer."  
  
"Good for you. No one cares."  
  
"I care," Teddy stated empathetically and slapped another twelve pack onto the table.  
  
"Christ, Teddy, for someone with no money, you make out like a fucking bandit."  
  
"I know," Teddy said proudly. "Girls love me and my making out skills."  
  
"Boys love mine," Chris said, a little too seriously.  
  
The other two turned and stared at him deeply enough to make him squirm under their harsh, searching eyes.  
  
"You're serious, aren't you?" Teddy said finally, drunk as hell but threatening still the same.  
  
"I might be," Chris said, taking another swig of beer from his can avoiding his friend's eyes. "And even if I am, you two know you want my ass."  
  
"So you would be on the bottom."  
  
"Aaah!" Teddy choked on his beer and spit it back out. "I don't want to think about Chris being on the bottom.  
  
"So you don't mind thinking about him being on the top?"  
  
Chris laughed. "He *fantasizes* about me being on the top."  
  
Teddy grunted something that resembled a negative. "I think it might be time for you two to leave," he muttered under his breath.  
  
"You're kicking us out?" Chris asked, incredulously. "It comes out that you fantasize about me being on top, and all you can do is kick us out?"  
  
Teddy muttered something and dragged the smaller Gordie to the door. "I'm kicking your bitch out, Chambers," he announced to the general vicinity of the kitchen. "Follow him."  
  
Gordie mumbled drunkenly and cradled a throbbing headache, waiting for Chris, who headed out the front door and put an arm under the extremely drunk Gordie, who was by now staggering everywhere.  
  
"Bye, girls who fuck up the ass," Teddy said sweetly from inside the house.  
  
"Fuck off, Duchamp."  
  
"Get off my lawn."  
  
Gordie giggled; it was high-pitched and Chris and Teddy would have been embarrassed to have it pass their lips.  
  
"Gordie, man, you okay? You're acting... um... gayer than normal."  
  
"I'm drunk, you moron!"  
  
"Well, yeah, but..."  
  
Making a decision based on his father and Gordie's, Chris decided that the best place to lie his stone drunk best friend down for the night might not be at his house. So, making a mental note to telephone the Lachance's house in the morning, he headed for the tree house.  
  
"The flowers are pretty," Gordie noted, because Chris was by now dragging him feet first, giving him a great view from the ground.  
  
"They're lovely," Chris grumbled, straining to move the deceptively small but incredibly, it seemed, overweight Gordie to the tree house.  
  
"Oh, fuck," Chris said under his breath as he looked up the ladder. "Gordie, if you think for one second I'm going to lift you up the ladder..."  
  
"I can climb, Chris," Gordie said floatily, getting to his feet and promptly falling down. "Ow, dammit, ow."  
  
"Yes, ow. Now get up and climb."  
  
Gordie kicked his friend from the ground and used a rung of the ladder to pull himself up. "Check this out."  
  
Chris groaned and raised an eyebrow. "What?"  
  
"I can do the worm on a ladder." Gordie pulled himself up, rung by rung.  
  
"Gordie, you asshole, you look like you're humping the ladder. You ladderfucker."  
  
Gordie ripped his shirt off and swung it around over his head, climbing all the while as he yelled "Ladder fornication!" into the night.  
  
Chris sighed and buried his head in his hands. "Gordie, need I remind you that I'm looking at your ass as you do this. . . ?"  
  
"Oh yeah, you're the gay one, aren't you?" When Chris paused, Gordie laughed and crowed "Oh! Hit below the bra strap! What now, Chambers?"  
  
With a strange, warlike shriek, Chris climbed the ladder with almost superhuman speed and shoved Gordie up into the tree house.  
  
"You sleep under the milk crate," he directed. "I'll get the cot."  
  
"I ALWAYS have to sleep under the milk crate."  
  
"You fit under it. I don't."  
  
"My balls need the room."  
  
"You have no balls."  
  
"Oh. Ouch. Original, Chambers," he said sarcastically as he disappeared underneath the milk crate.  
  
He was silent for a long time, and Chris was convinced that he was asleep, until Gordie's voice pierced the silence.  
  
"I hate the milk carton."  
  
"Good night, Gordie."  
  
"Like, I really hate the milk carton."  
  
"Good night, Gordie."  
  
End of Chapter One 


	2. The Morning After

Thanks to my ONE REVIEWER. more please.  
  
And special thanks to Charligirl for beta-ing, suggesting, and generally making this story the wonderful piece of randomness that it is. I owe you BIGTIME.  
  
Chapter 2  
  
Light streamed into the windows of the tree house, hitting Chris's eyes and waking him up a lot earlier than he would have liked. Shooting a look over at Gordie to see if he was awake, he was met with the sleeping image of his best friend.  
He hated admitting it to himself, but Gordie was cute. Not manly, hot, excessively muscular cute, but sweet, innocent cute. Though, after last night, Chris had to wonder just how innocent Gordie was- he had held his liquor pretty well.  
Gordie also looked ridiculous, curled up underneath that milk crate. Chris couldn't believe he still fit under that thing- he and his friends had made the always-tiny Gordie sleep under there when they were eight. How can anyone possibly not grow in between the ages of eight and fifteen?  
Gordie's a shrimp, he reminded himself. A shrimp that, no matter how much you might wish it, is not a fag as well.  
"Mmm." A small sound came from Gordie's direction, and Chris turned in surprise so quickly to look back at the lump under the milk crate that he fell off the cot.  
"Ow," he muttered angrily to himself, looking over at Gordie, sleeping peacefully. "You made me fall, you stupid prick."  
Gordie stirred again, and Chris was sure he was awake, but when he rolled over, his eyes were closed and his mouth was half open.  
"Mouth breather," Chris murmured under his breath. He'd been teasing Gordie about sleeping with his mouth open for God knew how long, taking pride in the fact that he, Chris Chambers, had always slept with his mouth closed. He winced as he realized that that meant that he'd been watching Gordie sleep since they were little.  
Gordie's dreams, quite frankly, scared Chris. When Gordie was awake, it was like Chris had almost a sort of control over him. Chris could calm him down, no matter what was going on. But when Gordie was asleep, nothing could reach him. He was stuck in his own little world, and no matter how much Chris wished he could help him, there wasn't anything to be done.  
"Ah! Damn!" Gordie exclaimed, as he woke up, hitting his head sharply on the milk crate. "I told you I needed the room!"  
"No, you said your balls needed the room," Chris corrected, "and as we've established, you have no balls."  
"You established that, not me," Gordie replied, rubbing his head gingerly where he had hit it.  
"You agreed."  
"Did not!"  
"Did too. You hungry?"  
Gordie hated that more than anything in the world. Chris would say something, and then change the subject to something loads more practical so quickly your head spun. It was impossible to get the last word with him. "Yeah, I guess so."  
"We have," Chris began, rummaging through the crate labeled "Food" in Teddy's spidery handwriting, "an egg, and. . . Pez."  
"You've got to be kidding me."  
"No shit."  
"Well, how are we gonna split an egg?"  
"We're not going to."  
"Whaaa. . . ?"  
Chris smiled smugly. "I'm gonna have the egg. You're gonna have the Pez."  
"Why?"  
"Because I'm bigger."  
"You're bigger because you always get the egg, dammit! You'll pay for this in hell, Chambers!"  
"Yeah, but until then, you're stuck with the Pez!"  
  
Later that day, you could find Gordie at home, serving hard time for bailing and not returning, and Chris talking to one of Gordie's exes. Justine Zegers had gone out with both Gordie and Chris, in that order. Of the two of them, though, only Chris had remained close to her.  
They sat on Chris's porch, talking the afternoon away. Justi was smoking quietly, and Chris was staring into the sky. Several times, he had opened his mouth to say something, but no sound had come out. Now, he was finally getting up enough courage to say something. "Justi, I---"  
"Don't call me that," Justine inserted, but her eyes were sparkling.  
"I'll call you what I like, wench. Anyway, I have a huge problem."  
"Actually, you're not *that* big."  
"Justi!"  
"What? It's true!" At his death glare, she pursed her lips and sighed. "Okay, what is it? Spill it, Chambers."  
"Well, you know I'm gay. . . "  
"I know," Justi affirmed impatiently. She was the only one who had known before last night. "Wait, does this have to do with that hot new kid? Because he's mine, bitch!"  
Chris looked at her oddly. "No, you fool," he said, after a short pause. "It has to do with. . . I kinda told Gordie and Teddy last night."  
Justi winced. "That's bad."  
Chris nodded. "Yeah. Teddy didn't think I was serious, I don't think."  
"Thank God."  
"No kidding. He'd kill me. But Gordie knows."  
"How do you know?"  
Chris sighed. "Gordie knows everyfuckingthing. After breakfast he just started acting weird around me. He finally said he had to go home early."  
Justi sighed too. "You're screwed, man," she said finally. "Gordie's straight as an arrow."  
"How do you know?" Chris asked, half-desperately. "How can you possibly know that?"  
"I don't know." She put her hands up helplessly. "For all I know, Chris, he could be fucking your father every night. I just don't want you to get your hopes up. Chris, have you ever actually met another gay person? There are 1200 people here. If you figure 600 are guys, how con you possibly expect Gordie to be the one fag out of 600 other people?"  
"Well, he writes, right? Only gay guys write!"  
"Now that is not true."  
"He's lefthanded. I heard somewhere that all lefthanded people are gay."  
"Chris, that's not true either."  
"He's a mouth-breather. Mouth-breathers are always gay."  
"Stop making excuses. He's not gay. You're going to have to accept that you're always going to see Gordie with a girlfriend. You'll probably go to his wedding. Hell, you'll be his best man. At his wedding to a girl."  
Chris put his head in his hands. "Justi, shut up."  
"Someone's got to be the realist."  
"Maybe he likes guys and girls."  
"Or maybe he likes winged purple elephants. Face it, Chambers, you've got a snowball's chance in hell of getting Gordie. Here, have a smoke." She handed him a cigarette and took a drag on her own. "Poor Chris."  
"Poor Chris my ASS!" he screamed, jumping up. "You have no idea how it feels to like someone like Gordie and know for sure that he'll never look at you the way you look at him! You're a gorgeous, straight girl! You can have any guy you want! You can look at a guy, say 'He's hot' and in the next twenty-four hours, he's hanging onto your arm like a little puppy dog! You don't know what it is to love someone and know for sure that it's hopeless."  
"I'm sorry," she said softly, and took another drag on the cigarette. After a short silence, she said, "But I do know."  
"How?" he asked, sitting back down. His voice had quieted, and he looked a little defeated.  
"I know I'll never get you back, Chris."  
He looked at her in a mix of shock and horror. "What?"  
"You left me, and I know for damn sure that you're never coming back."  
"Justi, don't do this."  
"What made you do it, Chris?"  
"What made me do what?"  
"What made you gay? Did you just wake up someday and say, 'Hmm. I think I like men now. Let me go see if I can get a piece of my best friend's ass.'?"  
"Shut up!" he yelled, his face turning red. He leapt back up, and all of the anger in his voice before had returned with company. "Just shut the fuck up! It's not like that at all! Dammit, I'm leaving!"  
And he turned on his heel and turned into his house, slamming the door so hard it looked like the house was going to fall in on itself.  
"Fine!" Justi screamed back to the closed door. "Leaving's what you do best, isn't it! But don't think for one second I'm going to watch you waste away, Chambers!"  
Gordie, who had seen the whole scene from the sidewalk, just looked at Justi in gaping horror for a while and ran home.  
  
End of Chapter 2 


	3. The Tooth Fairy Beats The Crap Out Of Ch...

A million thanks again to Charligirl for being the best beta-reader in the whole world. You're awesome.  
  
Chapter 3  
  
"Chris, please let me in," Gordie yelled desperately, pounding on Chris's door an hour later. "I know you're in there! Open this door right now!"  
"So you can yell at me for being a pussy fag?"  
"No, you asshole, so I can talk to you without a door in my face!"  
"No."  
"Why the hell not?!"  
"Because." There's no way in hell I'm letting Gordie see me cry, Chris thought to himself behind the solid oak door.  
Gordie swore quietly and slunk down the door to sit on the porch. "All right, fine, Chris. Have it the fuck your way. But you will hear this, no matter what you think. I will talk to you through this goddamned door if that's what it takes."  
Silence.  
"All right. I'm talking."  
More silence.  
"Chris, I want you to know that I heard every damned word you said. Every single goddamned word."  
"So now you're taking pleasure in teasing me, is that it, Lachance? Jesus Christ, if you had any decency you'd leave now!" Chris hollered through the door.  
Gordie sighed and flipped up the mail slot to look at Chris sitting in an armchair in the front room. "My God, Chris, have you been crying?" Gordie asked in surprise, catching sight of Chris's red, puffy eyes.  
"No, the Tooth Fairy visited, and beat the shit out of me. I didn't even see it coming. And to add insult to fucking injury, she gave me pink eye. Life's a bitch, huh?"  
"Chris, will you stop being such an asshole and let me in?"  
"No."  
"You're really going to make me talk to you through this mail slot, aren't you?" Gordie asked, nose wrinkled. Chris nodded.  
"Start talking."  
Gordie took a deep breath. "I just went home and did a lot of thinking, Chris."  
"Must have been hard, all that thinking business."  
"Dammit, Chris, I am trying to talk to you!"  
"All right, fine. Go on."  
"Anyway, I realized that you're my best friend in the whole world. And I came to the conclusion that I don't care if you're gay, straight, or a fucking hermaphrodite who gets his sex kicks out of dead people."  
"That's a necrophiliac, Gord."  
"I know. Shut the hell up and let me finish." Chris nodded. "As I was saying, I realized that I didn't care that you were gay. But apparently you'd set your sights on me."  
Chris flung a rubber band at Gordie, hitting his fingers and making the mail slot slam shut as Gordie cried "Ow!" in surprise. "I'm not sure I want to see your face when you say the next part."  
"Chris, whatever I feel, I promise not to ever do anything that would make you hire a hit-man to take me out." That was romantic, Lachance. Geez, try and make him feel good, not like a gangster.  
But surprisingly enough, Chris laughed shakily. "Thanks, man," he said, and the next thing Gordie knew, Chris was over at the door, holding the mail slot open and looking Gordie in the eye.  
"Chris, let me in. Please."  
Chris let out a huge, fake sigh and opened the door. Gordie stood up, dusted off his legs, and darted inside, sitting on the couch.  
Chris came and sat next to him, his shoulders touching Gordie's.  
"I've given this a lot of thought," Gordie began softly, and Chris swore he could taste his breath. Mmm, bubblegummy. . . great, I'm in love with someone who still uses bubblegum toothpaste. . . what the hell am I thinking about toothpaste for?  
"I would never make a decision without considering all of your feelings," Gordie continued, totally oblivious to Chris's mindless ramblings about toothpaste. Get to the point, Lachance, Chis begged silently. How long can it take to find the right words to break someone's heart?  
"So, I was thinking. . . " Gordie, PLEASE just say it and get the hell out of my house so I can slit my wrists.  
"I was thinking maybe we can make this work."  
Chris's jaw dropped. Of all the things in the entire world Gordie could possibly have said just then, that was just about the very last one Chris would ever have thought of.  
"Really?" Chris asked, and was surprised at how very girly his voice sounded when he squeaked things. "Y-y-you ain't s-s-shittin' me?" Christ, Chambers, if anyone could ruin this moment, it's you.  
But Gordie's eyes were still warm and caring as he said, "Really."  
Chris was operating numbly here. Part of him- Part A- kept insisting that Gordie was being Gordie: sympathetic and willing to sacrafice almost every bit of his own comfort for his friends. But another part- Part B, the one he really wanted to believe- figured that Gordie really wanted to be with him, that there was a chance that Gordie wasn't "straight as an arrow".  
Go to hell, Part A.  
Chris wrapped Gordie in his arms and kissed him. The kiss was light and tentative, just in case Gordie didn't really want this, but after a few seconds, it was obvious that Gordie was definitely kissing back. So Chris deepened the kiss. When they separated, he resisted the urge to jump up and cheer.  
"That wasn't bad," Gordie commented, as if he were talking about the weather. "Not bad at all."  
Chris didn't know what to say, so he looked down. But then a thought occurred to him, and he looked up. "What if Eyeball finds out?"  
"Well, then he'll kick both of our asses and probably castrate us. But you know what? I don't really care."  
Chris grinned and kissed his friend again.  
"Awww," came a voice from the doorway. "I guess I was wrong."  
Both of them looked up, quickly disentangling themselves, to find Justi standing in the doorway. Gordie scrambled away from Chris, staring, apoplectic, at the ex-girlfriend that he still didn't get along with. This is great. Justine's going to murder me for hooking up with the boy she still holds a torch for. Oh, God, she could kick my ass! Gordie wrung his hands, muttering something about "checking Chris for cankersores".  
"Chris, I came over here to say I was sorry and that there might be hope, but it doesn't really look like you're lacking in that department. . . And Gordie, for the love of God, close your mouth. You're collecting flies."  
Chris's face softened at the sight of his friend, and Gordie knew he was fighting the internal battle that was Chris Chambers. Half of him wanted to forgive and forget, but the other part had been hurt deeply enough by her words not to want to talk to her.  
As usual, peacemaker Chris won out, and he smiled. "It's okay, Justi. I guess it wasn't really your fault."  
Gordie noted Chris's subtle lack of an apology.  
"Go for ice cream?" Justi offered. "My treat."  
Gordie and Chris looked at each other and nodded.  
"I guess we can bring ourselves to gorge on junk food spending your money," Chris said heavily, and Justi laughed.  
"Good. We've got to hurry, though- the ice cream place closes at eight."  
And so the three of them came to be walking down the sidewalk to the ice cream parlor. Twilight had lengthened their shadows, and Chris had taken to kicking the same rock from his driveway to their destination.  
"So," Justi asked quietly, away from the crowd, "are you two. . . you know. . ."  
Chris looked at Gordie. He hadn't given any thought at all as to their status, only the fact that they had kissed. Twice.  
Gordie nodded. "Yeah, I guess so."  
"How can you not know?" Justi exclaimed in exasperation. "Men! Christ!"  
"Well fine then. We are. How's that?" Gordie scoffed.  
"Better."  
Chris sat there, munching his cone silently.  
"What are you thinking, Chris?" Justi asked after a little while.  
"I'm trying to decide whether it's worth it to try and tell Teddy and Vern."  
"Ha. They'll kick your ass."  
"They couldn't kick my ass."  
"They'll hire people to kick your ass."  
"You think so?" Chris asked thoughtfully.  
"Uh, yeah," Justi replied. "They'll kick my ass, too. We'll have to go into hiding and live in Saudi Arabia as camel farmers to escape their Mafia of Love."  
Gordie and Chris looked at her with raised eyebrows.  
"Or maybe not."  
Gordie shook his head. "Your best friend is a moron, Chris," he remarked, inspecting the hole he had bitten into the bottom of his cone and slurping the ice cream through the hole in the bottom.  
"What the hell are you doing?" Chris asked him, laughing.  
"I dunno."  
"Justi!" All three of them looked around to see Justi's younger sister, Emma, waving. "Mom says get your ass home or she'll beat you!"  
"I'll tell on you for swearing!"  
The littler girl's lip quivered in fear. "Really?"  
"No, not really," Justi sighed. "Just let me finish this ice cream."  
"No! You have to come home now or Mom'll spank both of us!" "God," Justi groaned, standing up. "I gotta go."  
"Bye," Chris said, waving at her as she left. He looked at Gordie. "What time do you have to be home?" he asked.  
Gordie grinned. "I told my dad I was spending the night at your house."  
Chris grinned just as evilly. "Ha. Cool."  
The walk home seemed infinitely longer than the walk there. It might have been the fact that Gordie tripped eight times, or the fact that Chris ran into five walls. The point was that neither boy was really concentrating on what he was doing.  
Laughing at some pointless joke that wasn't even funny anyway, the two boys stumbled into Chris's house about twenty minutes later, and headed straight up to Chris's room.  
"You wanna play cards?" Chris asked, almost shyly. He had been acting very. . . "unChris-like" all evening, in Gordie's opinion. Gordie had never pegged his best friend as the type who would clam up around his girlfriend. Slash boyfriend.  
Chris let Gordie win twice, and then realized Gordie knew he was letting him win, and, on the third game, completely massacred Gordie.  
"Wow. I didn't realize one person could be beaten as badly as I just was."  
Chris laughed and sat up against a wall. "Yeah, get used to it, Lachance. My bitches get the whip. In more ways than one." Normally, both of them would have laughed. But tonight, the joke earned a weak chuckle out of Gordie, followed by a long silence.  
"Look, Gordie," Chris said after a little while, "if I ever say anything that gets on your nerves, tell me, okay? I mean, I'm not good with words, and I---"  
He got cut off by Gordie leaning over the cards and giving him the best kiss of his life. Sure, he'd been kissed by girls before, but this. . . this was great. While it lasted, at least.  
"Well, if this isn't the cutest thing I've ever seen," came Ace Merrill's cold, harsh voice from the doorway. Both of their heads snapped up to look at Ace and Eyeball at the door. How could I have forgotten to shut that? Chris asked himself, panicked.  
"Sure is, Ace."  
  
End Of Chapter 3 


	4. You're Stuck With Me

Charligirl's still the best beta ever.  
  
Chapter 4  
  
"Check out my faggot brother, Ace," Eyeball said, pinning Chris's arm behind his back and twisting. "How long do you think he can go without screaming?"  
"I dunno, Eyeball," Ace replied, smirking. "Give it a try."  
Eyeball yanked on the twisted arm. Hard. Chris gasped with pain but didn't make a sound.  
"Hey!" Gordie cried indignantly, ignoring Chris's frantic gestures to be quiet. "You can't do that!"  
"And why the hell not?"  
Chris was squirming in Eyeball's iron grip, trying intensely to shut Gordie up, but the dark haired boy missed all the signals.  
"Because! He's your brother! I-"  
"This kid talks too much, Eyeball," Ace interrupted gruffly. "We're gonna have to shut him up."  
"Go for it," Eyeball acknowledged, throwing his brother to the floor with a thud. "I sure as hell don't want to hear all that bullshit."  
Ace backhanded Gordie across the face swiftly. Gordie, who hadn't been expecting to be actually hit, fell like a sack of potatoes. The last thing Gordie saw was the steel tip of Ace's boot six inches from his face and then everything went black.  
  
When Gordie awoke, it was to Ace and Eyeball in his line of vision, blocking his sight of everything else in the room. Both of them smelled of whiskey- Gordie wondered why he hadn't smelled it before.  
"He's up," Eyeball reported, completely unnecessarily.  
"I can see that, fuckface," Ace retorted impatiently.  
Gordie found that he couldn't speak. He didn't know whether it was from damage to his vocal cord or pure fear. He craned his neck around the two of them to see Chris lying face down on the floor ten feet away. He didn't move and his chest wasn't rising with breath.  
"Did you. . . did you kill him?" Gordie squeaked hysterically. Eyeball and Ace laughed.  
"Hell no. He's not worth our time. We're taking you home, kid, and if you say one goddamned word, I swear to God we'll kill you," Ace said softly. Eyeball nodded in the background.  
Gordie nodded numbly, realizing that every time he moved his head, it hurt more. He reached up to touch his face and brought his hand back to look at it; the hand that had touched his cheek was covered in blood.  
"Good boy," Ace said coldly, and picked Gordie up to sling him over his shoulders. Eyeball followed- to pick him up and put his skull back together if he fell, Gordie reasoned vaguely.  
Gordie recognized familiar landmarks from his odd position over Ace's shoulder, but he missed all of the weird looks people were giving them. He registered only one thing: they were going home. To his house.  
Ace walked up the stairs to the front door and knocked. After a while, Gordie's mother came to the door.  
"Can I help you?" she asked, her nose wrinkled, and then realized what Ace was carrying over his shoulder.  
"Oh my God!" she shrieked. "Oh God! What happened?"  
"We found him behind Quidacioluo's, Mrs. Lachance. I guess some punks beat him up."  
Eyeball sighed heavily. "They did the same thing to my brother, ma'am. I just don't understand who would do this."  
Mrs. Lachance wrung her hands. "Richard!" she screamed. "Richard, come here, quick!"  
"What is it, Dorothy?" Mr. Lachance grumbled, coming down the stairs, but his eyes widened when he saw Eyeball and Ace laying his son on the couch. He quickened his pace and sprinted to his wife. "What the hell happened here?"  
"These boys found Gordie behind the grocery store," Mrs. Lachance explained tearfully. "They brought him here."  
"You're the Chambers boy, aren't you?" Mr. Lachance asked with narrowed eyes. Eyeball nodded uncertainly.  
"Mrs. Lachance, would you like us to call a doctor?" Ace asked sweetly.  
"No, that's quite all right, Mr. Merrill. But thank you. Thank you so much," Mrs. Lachance replied, wiping tears from her eyes.  
"All right," Ace said sympathetically, and gestured for Eyeball to follow him. "We'd better be going, then. . . my mother doesn't know where we are. . . she'll be worried, you see. . . "  
"Of course," Mrs. Lachance said, smiling at them through her tears. "Thank you boys. Richard?"  
Mr. Lachance dug into his pocket and found two crisp, clean, ten dollar bills. He pressed them into each boy's palms, saying, "Boys like you are people all the kids should look up to."  
"We try," Ace said seriously, and left, shutting the door quietly.  
"Who would do something like this?" Mrs. Lachance asked her husband desperately. "Gordie doesn't have any enemies, does he?"  
"I don't know," Mr. Lachance replied indifferently, and shrugged. "Dorothy, holler if the boy wakes up. I've got to go, the ball game's on."  
Mrs. Lachance looked at her husband disgustedly. "You're going to leave him, totally unconscious, to watch a ball game?" she cried shrilly, but he'd already left to go into the living room.  
She sighed and sat down on the couch next to her son. "Poor Gordie," she whispered, stroking hair away from his forehead, damp with sweat. "Poor, poor Gordie."  
  
Mrs. Lachance doted on her son incessantly for the next three days. The conversation they had was always the same.  
"Gordie," Mrs. Lachance would sigh, looking at him sadly, "who did this to you?"  
Gordie would pause, and look out the window distantly. Finally, he'd clear his throat and mutter, "I don't know, mom. I didn't see him."  
Gordie stuck to that story for the rest of his life. No one ever found out that he had an all too clear picture of who it was that had done this to him. And he didn't care so much about himself- he had healed and was practically back to normal, save for a huge bruise over his left eye and a stiff left ankle.  
It was Chris he was worried about. Mrs. Lachance hadn't let her son out of the house in days, and Chris hadn't come to visit. It made Gordie wonder if he was all right. On the third day, Gordie was driven so insane with worry that he'd almost have preferred to see Chris dead than keep having to wonder how he was doing.  
"Please, mom, let me go out."  
"No." His mother hardly looked up from her needlework.  
"Why?!"  
"Because. You aren't well."  
"I'm fine!"  
"You're not. You still walk with a limp."  
"Dad walks with a limp!"  
"Your dad's not normal."  
Gordie sighed. Every day started with this nagging argument now. He could tell right now that he wasn't going to win this one, either.  
He trudged upstairs, resigned to another day alone, when suddenly a knock came at the door.  
"Aaah! I'll get it!" Gordie cried at the top of his voice, and jumped down the stairs. It would have been cool looking had he not fallen over.  
"Gordie, you spaz," Mrs. Lachance reprimanded, crossing the living room to the front door. "Oh, hi, Chris," Gordie heard his mother say from the door.  
"Chris!" Gordie cried ecstatically, overjoyed at hearing his best friend's voice. "Gordie? Where are you?" "I'm here!" Gordie cried, raising his hand above his head.  
Chris ducked away from Gordie's mother to look at Gordie, sprawled on the ground by the stairs.  
"Gordie, what the hell are you doing there? Oops, sorry, Mrs. Lachance," he added to Mrs. Lachance's disapproving stare.  
"I fell! Is that so wrong?"  
Chris shook his head. "How have you made it fifteen years without killing yourself, Gordie?"  
Gordie smiled up at him from the floor. "It's a mystery."  
Mrs. Lachance put an arm around her son's best friend. "Chris, I never did get the chance to thank your brother properly. Will you tell him thank you for me?"  
"For what?" Chris asked, confusion evident in his voice.  
"Why, for saving Gordie, of course."  
"But he didn't-" Chris stopped short, noticing Gordie flailing his arms wildly behind his mother. "I mean, he didn't think it was any trouble," he said slowly.  
"You've got such a nice brother, Chris," Mrs. Lachance commented. "You're very lucky to have him." She smiled and left.  
"What the fuck was that?" Chris demanded angrily, once they'd reached Gordie's room and locked the door behind them. "You didn't go along with Eyeball's story, did you?"  
"Well, it was kind of hard not to, seeing as how I wasn't awake at the time!"  
"You could have told her after you woke up!"  
"Yeah, and be hunted by Ace for the rest of my life!"  
Chris exhaled. "I never took my brother and his jackass friends into account when I. . . you know. . . " he said helplessly, by way of apology. "I talked to Justi the other night, and she says that it's all over town. Everyone knows."  
"About us getting beat up?"  
"Well, yeah. . . and about why."  
"Ugh," Gordie groaned, his heart sinking.  
"Yeah. Ugh. In short, we're hated."  
"By everyone?"  
"Just about."  
"Oh no."  
"Hey, it's nothing new for me," Chris said, and shrugged. "People hate me all the time. But you're not used to being hated, are you?"  
"I've got friends like Teddy, don't I?"  
Chris scoffed angrily, snapping into the father mode that Gordie hated so much. "Don't get smart with me, dammit. I'm looking out for you."  
"I know," Gordie said, fidgeting under Chris's intense gaze.  
"Gordie, don't hate me."  
"I don't hate you."  
"Don't ever hate me."  
"I'll hate you if you keep saying stupid stuff."  
"If I shut up, do you promise not to hate me?"  
Gordie grinned. "Yeah."  
Chris allowed himself a small smile, but it quickly disappeared. "Did my brother give you that?" he asked softly, pointing at Gordie's black eye.  
Gordie shrugged. "Yeah, but it looks like they got you a lot worse than they got me," he returned, taking in Chris's eyes, both darker than his own, and his crooked nose and cut lip.  
"Nah. I've had worse."  
Gordie put his hands in his lap and sat down on the bed. "Chris," he started. "Maybe. . . maybe the world isn't ready for this yet."  
"What are you saying?" Chris's eyes grew a little panicked.  
"I'm saying that maybe we should. . . we should keep this secret."  
"How long?"  
Gordie sighed. "I dunno. A day. Forever. We'll have to just take it one day at a time."  
"But Justi says the whole world knows, Gord. How do we get out of that one little problem?"  
"Do you really think," Gordie asked, smiling, "that we'll have trouble convincing the whole town that we got drunk that night?"  
Chris grinned now too.  
"We'll get Teddy and Vern to lie for us," Gordie continued. "We'll get them to tell whoever asks that we all got drunk and that you and me went back to your house. We kissed when we were drunk. No one's going to argue that- the fucking Mayor kissed a guy when he was drunk on New Years, and no one cares now, do they? All we need to do is ask Teddy and Vern, and- --"  
Chris frowned. "Oh yeah," he said, as if remembering something he'd forgotten a long time ago. "Teddy and Vern. Have you talked to them lately?"  
Gordie shook his head.  
"How do you think they'll take it?"  
"I don't think we'll have any trouble with Vern. Teddy's a little harder, but he doesn't have any friends other than us. If he leaves us, he's screwed."  
"Not if he and Vern both leave."  
"Vern won't leave," Gordie said confidently. "You've done too much for him."  
It was true. Vern, with a lot of help from Chris, had transformed over the years from a short, fat, homely whiny kid to a tall, slender, handsome whiny kid.  
"Get Justi to talk to him," Gordie persisted. Everyone knew by now about Vern's unbelievably hopeless crush on Justi. "If he listens to any one of us, it'll be her."  
"Gordie, I'm starting to think that there's no one better to be gay with than you if you don't want anyone to know."  
"You don't have a choice, Chambers," Gordie teased, pulling Chris toward him by the collar and kissing him. "You're stuck with me."  
"I don't mind."  
  
End of Chapter 4 


	5. The Lone Ranger Thanks Tonto

Thanks again to my awesome beta reader! And if you're reading this- REVIEW MY STORY!!  
  
Chapter 5  
  
"What do you mean, it's disgusting! It's beautiful!" Justi shouted at Vern. She'd been persuaded by Gordie and Chris to talk to Vern, and was being met with a lot more difficulty than she'd thought. "They're two people in love!"  
"It's wrong," Vern said stubbornly. "It's a sin."  
"How can something so lovely be a sin?"  
"I don't know, Justi. It just is."  
Justi looked at him threateningly. "If you don't lie for them, I'll pull a few sins on you. And not the good kind, either," she added, seeing his smile.  
"Justi, I can't lie about something like that."  
"Why the hell not?"  
"Because. . . " Vern trailed off.  
"If you don't lie for them," she pleaded, "no one in the whole world is ever going to respect them again. They're going to look at them and say 'Oh, there go the two fags.' "  
"That's what they are!"  
Justi shot him a horrified look.  
"You know I didn't mean it like that," Vern amended hastily. "I just meant that if I lie for them, they'll be living a lie!"  
"Is that worth losing two of your best friends?"  
"Shit, I don't know!" Vern said, his voice rising. His lip trembled, and it looked like he was going to cry for a second. "I mean, no it's not worth it, but I. . . " He sighed. "What about Teddy?"  
"What about Teddy?"  
"Well, is he going to lie too? Because if I tell one story and he tells another, people are going to believe that they're gay. Teddy wouldn't have a reason to lie about them being gay."  
"I talked to Teddy. He says if we buy him enough beer, he'll drink it all and scatter the cans around the tree house. Not only is he lying for us, he's helping it look good."  
Vern sighed again. "Okay, I'll do it."  
Justi smiled. "Thank you, Vern!" She hugged him, and then jumped up to go tell Chris. Vern just stared after her, mesmerized, before she yelled back, "And, Vern?"  
His head snapped up to look at her.  
"Meet me in the tree-house tonight at ten and we'll do a little sinning of our own."  
  
"Hey, Vern?" Chris asked, knocking on Vern's door later that night. "You in there?"  
Vern opened the door. The TV was on in the next room, and he did not look happy about being interrupted.  
"Hey, Vern-o, I just wanted to say. . . you know. . . thanks for covering my ass."  
Vern sighed. "Don't think I'm happy about it, Chambers. You owe me huge." He shrugged and swept Chris into the foyer. "Want a Coke?" Vern never had any liquor.  
"Sure, whatever."  
Vern disappeared into the kitchen and returned to find Chris planted in front of the TV. "I love the Lone Ranger," he said, looking sideways at Vern. "He always does the right thing, always sticks up for his friends, even if he knows some people might not like him for it. He's the best friend anyone could ask for. . . Tonto's real goddamned lucky."  
Vern looked at him for a few seconds and then smiled. "Yeah."  
  
While Chris and Vern were watching TV, Gordie was on a personal mission. Since he had broken up with Justi, he had spoken maybe twenty words to her. And fifteen of them were the other night, at the ice cream shop.  
It had always kind of irked him that Chris had remained friends with her, and he, Gordie, was alienated from her to the point where they never even talked anymore. Chris had been the reason they'd broken up- Justi had always had eyes for Chris. When she'd left him for his best friend, he'd refused to talk to her, and she'd respected his wishes.  
But now his wishes had changed. He'd like nothing better than to talk to her the way Chris did, and get the kind of advice from her that Chris got. He started walking up the lane leading to her house, trying to look cool just in case one of her eight brothers was watching. That plan fell through when he tripped up the stairs and fell.  
"Ow," he muttered, and, looking around, stood up and knocked on her door.  
"Gordie?" she asked in disbelief. "Get the hell off my lawn!"  
He winced. "Justine, let me come in."  
"No!"  
"Why?"  
"Because no matter how infatuated Chris might be with you, you have no charm over me anymore, Lachance!"  
"What? You broke my heart! You left me!"  
"Shut up, Gordie. You can't complain- you're not even straight!"  
"How can you use that as a defense? You left me for a guy who isn't straight either!"  
"Why are you making this about Chris?"  
Gordie put his head in his hand. "Justine, this isn't going the way I wanted it to. . . just let me in."  
Justi bit her lip. "Fine," she grumbled after a little while. "Step into my parlor."  
Although Justi's determination could be trying at times, it reminded Gordie of the spunkiness he'd fallen in love with. It seemed like years ago now. Hell, last week seemed like years ago. Could it really have been only a week ago he and Chris were running down the riverbank, fishing poles forgotten, laughing and shoving each other into the water?  
Justi shut the door behind him quietly and followed him into her living room. They both sat down at opposite ends of the ragged couch.  
"For once I'm home alone, Gordie," she said. "Brothers are all at camp, and Mom and Dad are at a movie. So spill it. Everything. Spill your soul, to coin a phrase."  
"Justine," Gordie began, trying to swallow his pride and ignore the macho voice in the back of his mind, "I'm sorry I was a colossal ass. That's it."  
Justi looked at him, eyes the size of saucers. "You're sorry?" she repeated. "You're. . . you're apologizing to me?"  
He frowned at her. "Thank you, Justine. You're right, this isn't hard enough. Please repeat that one more time."  
She sighed. "You and your pride. Okay, Lachance, I'll accept your apology."  
He looked at her expectantly for a good two minutes, until she finally added, "Okay, I'm sorry too." Her eyes narrowed. "What is this all about?"  
"I just thought that you and Chris are really close, and he's never expressed any mad desire to kill you, so maybe I'm half the reason we hate each other."  
"That's a very mature observation, Gordie."  
"Of course, you're the other half. . . "  
"I know. But I don't hate you as much as I did five minutes ago anymore. Before I didn't realize you knew how to apologize."  
Gordie smiled. "When you live with my dad, you learn real quick."  
She grinned back. "Hey, Gordie? If you want, you can call me Justi."  
"If you want you can call me sexy."  
"Or I could not, and pretend that I did."  
"I think I like you a lot better when you don't hate me. Justi," Gordie added, trying out the use of her nickname. Though Chris didn't know her by any other name, Gordie had never called her anything but Justine. "Justi. I like that."  
"So," Justi said, her tone getting very serious, "are you aware that the whole town hates you?"  
"Chris was right, you are encouraging."  
"Gordie, I'm serious. They think you're a freak."  
"Relax. I've got it covered." And Gordie told her his plan.  
"That's good," she said approvingly. "And Teddy's trashing the tree- house right now, as 'proof'?"  
"Doing what he does best," Gordie affirmed. "Hey, Justi," he asked, looking her in the eye, "do you think Chris and I are freaks?"  
"Um, duh. . . "  
"No, really, dammit."  
She sighed heavily. "No, of course I don't think you're freaks."  
Gordie looked at her sad face. "But. . . ?" he prodded.  
Justi sighed. "You cannot tell anyone this," she said. When Gordie nodded, she continued: "I. . . uh. . . I still kind of carry a torch for Chris," she said, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.  
Gordie stared at her for a long time before he could bring himself to speak. When he finally did, it was the incredibly lame, "No shit?"  
She glared. "Gordie, you are not helping. You think I want to be attracted to my best friend, who just happens to be gay?"  
Gordie had never seen Justi look like this before. Normally a very strong girl, she looked like she was on the verge of tears.  
"That must be awful for you," he said softly.  
"No, it's fucking wonderful!" she snapped, and a tear rolled down her face. "You heard Chris, he thinks I can get any guy in the world! But the only guy I would die to have. . . you've already got." Her voice broke on the last word, and Gordie realized for the first time just how awkward this was for her.  
"Justi, I'm sorry." What else could he possibly say? What else was there to say?  
"Gordie, it's not your fault. But I want you to promise me something."  
"What?"  
"You can never, ever hurt Chris. He deserves so much, and if you don't give it to him, I'll hunt you down and kill you personally."  
Gordie smiled and put an arm around her. "Don't worry, Justi. I'll take care of him."  
  
End of Chapter 5 


	6. I'm Floating On My Back And Thinking I L...

Chapter 6  
  
"I talked to Justi," Gordie said, lying down on Chris's bed. Chris was watching him from a chair at his desk.  
"And. . . ?"  
"And we're friends."  
"Good. She could kick your ass, so it's a good thing you're friends."  
"Thank you, Chris."  
"Hey, it's my job as your friend to let you know when girls can kick your ass."  
"I'm sure."  
"Hey," Chris asked, standing up and coming over to sit by Gordie on the bed, "you know what I'd really like to do right now?" His blue eyes glittered with something Gordie had never seen before.  
"Chris, we've been over this," Gordie began.  
"That's not what I mean, you moron. Here, come with me."  
Gordie followed Chris out of the house- silently, so as not to alert Eyeball that Gordie had been in the house in the first place- and out of his yard.  
Moonlight lit up the normally drab streets of Castle Rock. Gordie followed Chris, in awe of everything he was seeing. He'd never been outside on the night of a full moon with fog like this. It was giving everything a very ethereal sense. It was beautiful.  
"Have you ever been to the river at night, Gordie?" Chris whispered.  
Gordie shook his head.  
"It's awesome as hell. You've never seen anything like it."  
They passed the tree house, passed the huge hills, trudged through the low valley- all without a sound. The night looked like it would crack if they spoke.  
"Here," Chris whispered, and pulled back a willow branch.  
Gordie's breath caught in his throat. Chris was right- this was the prettiest thing he'd ever seen in his life. Fog hung in sheets over the thin river. Moonlight streamed through it in places, giving the water a dappled, glossy look. The air was warm, but the river was warmer, and in no time at all, Chris and Gordie had stripped off their shirts and slid in the water.  
There were so many things both of them wanted to say, but pride kept them from saying anything at all as they swam around. It was the first time since they'd started a relationship that they'd been swimming together, and Gordie found that it was extremely hard and awkward to keep having to take his eyes off of Chris all the time.  
"Gordie," Chris finally said, swimming up behind him. It was all that was said- it was all that needed to be said. They kissed again, and, were you to ask either of them, they would both call it the best kiss of their lives.  
After what seemed like an eternity, they separated.  
"Now I'm really glad I brushed my teeth," Gordie said, closing his eyes and floating up to the surface on his back. "Ooh, it's cold out there."  
"Yeah," Chris agreed mildly. "And neither one of us brought towels."  
"Now we'll both have to stay here," Gordie said in mock sadness. "Oh damn."  
"My thoughts exactly," Chris replied, floating thoughtfully. "Gordie, have you told your parents about. . . you know. . . ?"  
"No."  
"I haven't told my parents either." Chris tilted his head, the way he always did when he was thinking about something serious. "Hey, Gordie, do you ever. . . do you ever think that maybe what we're doing is wrong?"  
Gordie opened his eyes and sunk his body down so that only his head was visible above the dark river. "No," he replied honestly. "Do you?"  
"So many people say it's wrong. . . " Chris said slowly. "How can so many people be wrong about one thing?. . . "  
"People are wrong about a lot of things, Chris," Gordie said. "People crucified Christ. Do you know why?"  
Chris, never one for religious theory, shook his head.  
"They crucified him because they were afraid. Afraid of all the things he was saying. Because they'd never heard anything like it before. They had no idea what was going on, so they convinced themselves that it was wrong. Sound familiar?"  
Chris nodded.  
"Chris, do you think what we're doing is wrong?"  
"No, of course not," he said quickly. "I just. . . I dunno, Gordie."  
"I don't know, either," Gordie admitted honestly. "Quite frankly, we could be on the highway to hell without brakes. But I don't care, Chris. Know why?" He swatted away a mosquito on his arm almost lazily.  
Chris shook his head again.  
"Because I love you."  
Chris raised his eyebrows and swam over to Gordie.  
"The feeling's mutual, man."  
"Hey, Chris?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Would it kill you to say it back?"  
"Say what back?"  
"I told you I loved you, Chris. The customary response is 'I love you, too.' Or some form of that."  
"I've never said that to anyone before, Gordie."  
Gordie's eyes widened and his jaw dropped. Even him, with his messed up father, had heard that said to him and said it back hundreds of times. From his mother. From Denny, when he was still alive. From all of his relatives, really, except his father. "You've never said 'I love you'?" Gordie asked softly in disbelief.  
Chris shook his head. "I've never needed to. I've never loved anyone."  
Gordie looked down at the black water, trying to lose himself in it.  
"Until now."  
When Gordie looked back up, Chris's eyes were warmer than they'd ever been as he said, very slowly and clearly, "Gordie, I love you too."  
Gordie felt like singing.  
  
Back on the bank, after their little midnight expedition, Gordie and Chris were putting their shirts back on, unable to take their eyes off each other.  
"Gordie?" Chris asked after a little while.  
"Yeah?"  
"Do you want to. . . do you want to sleep together?"  
Gordie's jaw dropped for the second time that night.  
"Not like that. I just meant, you know. . . be there?" When Gordie said nothing, Chris sighed. "This is really awkward."  
"I'd love to, Chris," Gordie said, smiling.  
Chris smiled back.  
On their way to the tree house, they talked about everything, it seemed like.  
"When I was eight," Chris was saying, "my aunt wanted to take custody of me. My dad refused. I protested, and got this." He took his shirt off again, unashamed, and showed Gordie a long scar going down his side. "That's when I learned not to talk to my dad unless I really have to." He put his shirt back on, laughing.  
"What happened?" Gordie asked, truly afraid of the answer.  
"He hit me with a broken beer bottle," Chris answered wryly.  
"Oh, Chris. . . " Gordie trailed off, not knowing how to complete the thought.  
"When I was ten, Eyeball slammed my head against the corner of the dinner table so hard that my ear bled for a fucking week," Chris continued, showing Gordie a scar in his ear. "I don't have any hearing in this ear now."  
"No more, Chris," Gordie said sadly. "I don't want to hear any more. I don't ever want to hear any more."  
"Okay," Chris agreed. "I just figured you should know. . . "  
"Why?"  
"My family is a huge part of me," Chris explained. "They're there every single goddamned day, reminding me of what not to do with my life."  
Gordie nodded.  
"Without looking at Eyeball and how fucked up he is, I'd probably end up exactly the way he is. We're here."  
It always amazed Gordie how matter-of-fact Chris was about his family life. It also never ceased to amaze him that Chris was going through life thinking that it was his fault that his family beat him up. No matter how many times Gordie had tried to tell him the opposite, he remained convinced that it was he who was defective, not his family.  
Chris and Gordie climbed up the ladder, joking all the way. The dark mood had somehow lifted with Chris's proclamation of "we're here", and the two of them climbed, laughing.  
"I love this new porch," Chris commented. They'd added a porch to the tree house last year, with a real door, instead of the trap door they'd had. The reason for this was that people kept breaking in, so this door could have a lock. They'd decided on a combination lock, so that no one had to carry their keys around with them.  
Chris bent to work the lock and swung the door open.  
Four voices screamed in unison as Chris and Gordie found Vern and Justi inside looking quite. . . busy.  
  
"Hey, sorry we walked in on ye last night," Chris said to Vern and Justi the next day in the tree house. They'd come up there to eat lunch and talk to each other. Teddy, who had just met a new Protestant, was absent, citing "more important things to do."  
"It's okay," Vern said. "Maybe we should get a sign: 'Screwing in Progress' and hang it when we don't want to be interrupted."  
"Good idea, Vern," said Gordie, rolling his eyes. "Not."  
The person who knows the most about the relationship between two people is rarely in the relationship. Much more often, they are observers, most of the time good friends of the two in the relationship.  
And so it was with Justi and Vern. Gordie and Chris seemed to know much more about them than they themselves did. What they knew shocked them.  
The number one thing Chris had taught Vern about girls was never to hook up with someone who had just gone through something sad. And Justi had just had her heart ground into dust and scattered to the wind.  
Vern looked happy. In fact, he looked overjoyed. But Justi, leaning into his shoulder, looked uncomfortable enough to cry. Chris wanted to reach out and hug her.  
Justi had done something she wished had never happened because she was on the rebound from Chris with someone who had been waiting for it to happen for years. And now she was stuck carrying the "dirty little secret" on her own. Neither Chris nor Gordie had ever seen such a doomed relationship.  
Chris couldn't help but be angry with Vern. What business did he have making things this much more complicated? Didn't he know? Couldn't he see that this was going to end in heartbreak for both of them?  
Gordie, holding the other end of the spectrum, couldn't believe that Justi was leading Vern on like this. There was no way either one of them were going to keep this relationship up- either she would end it because her heart wasn't in it, or Vern would wise up and drop her.  
Either way, Gordie and Chris were both sure that all of the tears had not yet been shed.  
  
End of Chapter 6  
  
As always, thanks to Charligirl for beta-ing. . . You're wonderful. . . And special thanks to scarLeTT for helping me think of the title! ( 


	7. All the Lonely People

OK, this is the chapter that should probably merit me moving the story's rating up to R (for language), but I'm not going to move it, because after this, it's going to go back down to PG-13. Let's just say that you should consider this an R-rated chapter. Thanks for reading, and again, thanks to Charligirl for beta-ing. Littler readers- shoo. Come back for Chapter 8.  
  
Chapter 7  
  
It was hot.  
That was the one thought running through everyone's head that August day. School was in three weeks, but no one cared- because it was hot. Hot beyond anything anyone in Castle Rock had ever experienced.  
Gordie and Chris walked down Main Street. They passed Mrs. Robinson, who owned the flower shop. She had a watering can but seemed to have forgotten the flowers in favor of getting herself a little wet.  
They had been sent by Teddy, Vern, and Justi to go get ice for the tree house. They'd been more than happy to oblige- the grocery store had just gotten air conditioning. They were the first building in all of Castle Rock to get it, and now there were a ton of people there, not buying anything, just soaking up the cool air.  
"Oh, shit," Chris said faintly, catching sight of the line leading to the icebox. There were a good hundred people in line for it, grabbing bag after bag of half-melted ice. It was a futile attempt- Chris and Gordie could see, from where they were at the front of the store, that there were only about fifteen more bags.  
A sweaty, shorts-clad woman with straggly blonde hair grabbed the last bag, paid, and positively ran home so that the ice wouldn't melt before she got there.  
"Well this sucks," Gordie commented, looking at the line and watching the disappointed people dissolve into different parts of the store.  
"Ice cream," Chris said, not seeming to have heard Gordie. "We'll buy lots and lots of ice cream." His eyes had that manic glint to them that people get when they've been in the sun too long.  
"No, Chris," Gordie said, wiping his forehead with his arm. "Do you know how much that shit costs?"  
"You don't think we deserve it?" Chris returned, looking at all the people almost crying with heatstroke. "Now or never, Lachance. If we don't get it, these people will."  
Gordie sighed. "I've got two dollars," he said, resigned to the fact that as long as Chris was here, all the money between them would be spent.  
"I've got thirty cents," Chris contributed. "That's enough for a gallon!"  
"Indeed," Gordie agreed, shaking his head. "What flavor?"  
"Chocolate, of course."  
"Of course."  
They paid for their gallon of ice cream and sped back to the tree house. Despite their efforts, though, the treat was a little bit melted when they got there.  
"Eat! Eat quick!" Chris said, producing five plastic spoons and slamming the carton onto the makeshift table the three left behind were all playing cards around. "Before it melts!"  
Vern, Teddy, and Justi's eyes all widened when they saw the ice cream. Ice cream was an expensive treat, so unless it was a holiday, you rarely got to have it.  
"Yeah, man!" Teddy cried enthusiastically, brandishing his spoon like a knife. "Way to beat the heat, guys!"  
Chris smiled, feeling very appreciated as he watched his friends dig into the ice cream. Within ten minutes, the whole carton was polished off.  
"Well," Vern said, reclining back in his chair, looking very satisfied, "good choice, guys."  
"All my idea," Chris said proudly. Gordie nodded and muttered something.  
"What, Lachance?"  
"Nothing."  
Vern moved closer to Justi and put an arm around her, missing altogether the increasingly uncomfortable look on her face. "Justi and I are going to a movie tonight," he announced. "Anyone want to come?"  
"I'm in," Teddy agreed instantly. It seemed everyone had caught on to the situation between Vern and Justi except Vern himself. Justi shot Teddy a grateful look and mouthed 'Thank you'. He gave her an almost imperceptible nod.  
"I can't," Gordie explained. "I've got an essay to finish up if I want to get into the college courses next year."  
"I've got to get Gordie to help me out on an essay," Chris added, and they all laughed.  
"Have fun," Teddy said dryly.  
"Gordie and Chris alone? Of course they'll have fun!" Justi put in.  
  
But later that night, when Chris had been at Gordie's for about half an hour, they were not having fun. At all. The heat had gotten to each of their heads, and for the past half hour, they'd been annoying each other dangerously. They were both tense and on edge, but there had been a heavy silence. When it was finally broken, all hell broke loose.  
"I'm so hot," Gordie complained, for the third time in five minutes.  
"Shut the fuck up, Lachance," Chris snapped irritably, without even looking up from his essay.  
"You shut up, you asshole."  
"Why, so you can whine more? 'It's sooo hot,' " Chris mimicked viciously.  
"No, so I can work on my fucking essay, retard."  
"Your essay's a piece of shit."  
"You're a piece of shit," Gordie returned, looking at Chris with something a lot like loathing.  
"You're a piece of shit who fucks his mother," Chris said angrily, meeting his gaze.  
"You're just angry because I won't fuck you," Gordie said, and struck a nerve.  
"I would never fuck you!" Chris screamed. "You could pay me a million dollars and crawl to me on your dirty fucking hands and knees and I still wouldn't fuck you! You understand me?"  
"You wouldn't fuck me because you aren't good enough for me!" Gordie yelled back. "You've never been good enough for me, and you know it! Why the hell do you think your father beats the shit out of you all the time?"  
"Why do you think your dad hates you more than anything in the goddamned world, Lachance? Why do you think he went to watch the fucking ball game when Ace and Eyeball brought you home that night?" Chris's eyes glittered with malicious anger.  
"How the fuck do you know about that?" Gordie demanded, a fresh wave of anger crashing over him.  
"Eyeball told me about it," Chris answered, his voice dangerously soft and edged with something Gordie had never heard before. "And I remember thinking that my dad would never do anything like that. I remember thinking that it must be awful for you." His voice got even softer. "But you know what?"  
"No, what?"  
"Now I see why he did it."  
A flood of anger, hate, and shame threw Gordie into overdrive, and he heard himself saying things he never in a million years would have said to anyone, let alone Chris. "For someone who acts so tough, you sure can be a pussy at times! You're such a loser, Chambers! Everyone knows it! Everyone knows you're never going to get out of here. You're going to live here; you're going to do absolutely fucking nothing. You're going to be the one people pass and say 'Wow, is he a piece of shit.' You're going to do nothing here, and you're going to die here. And no one's going to remember the littlest Chambers boy, because no one's going to care! No one!" That isn't true, he heard the little voice in his head say. That's not true at all. I care, Chris, I love you. You will get out, because you're a brilliant, beautiful, smart, wonderful person. But he couldn't bring himself to say that out loud.  
Chris glared daggers at him, and for a second Gordie thought he was going to hit him. But his arms remained at his sides, as, eyes blazing, he screamed, "Oh, yeah, you're right, Lachance. Because everyone's going to remember you! Everyone's going to remember you and your stories! Yeah, right! YEAH FUCKING RIGHT. Lachance, people might not care about me, but at least I don't claim to have talent! You and your stories, that's all you've got! And you know what? Let me let you in on a little secret: You can't write! You've never been able to write! Your stories suck ass!" I love your stories, Gordie. You can write better than anyone I've ever seen. Please, don't believe this. . . I can't stop saying it, but it isn't true. I love you.  
Gordie's eyes darkened with rage. "I hate you, Chris Chambers. I hate you more than I've ever hated anyone in my life. I hope you go home and Eyeball beats the shit out of you for no reason at all." No! I don't hate you! Please, Chris, please don't believe that. I'm sorry, I really am. . .  
"Your father was right," Chris snarled. "All those dreams you've had, I've always told you they were wrong. But they're not at all. You're dad's absolutely right, Lachance. It should have been you. It should have been goddamned-fucking you." Chris stood there, as if daring Gordie to retort, lip trembling with anger. Gordie, look into my eyes. . . look into my eyes and see that that's not true. See that I would never mean that. Please.  
"Get out," Gordie said through clenched teeth. His voice was low, grating, and angry- it scared Chris beyond anything either of them had said all night. "Get the fuck out of here. I don't ever want to see you again, Chambers. Curl up somewhere and fucking die, why don't you? Do us all a favor."  
"Gladly, Lachance," Chris said, his voice a little quieter now. "I'll gladly remove myself from your presence, as long as you promise me I'll never have to see you again." He was regretting everything he'd said intensely now, but couldn't find the words to tell Gordie, who was blind with anger, rage, and pain. He turned on his heel and slammed Gordie's bedroom door. Gordie heard him run down the stairs and slam the front door as well.  
"I hope you fall and die, Chambers," he hollered out the window to Chris's shadowy figure. His voice cracked and strained with effort.  
"I won't, Lachance," Chris yelled back. "I wouldn't dream of dying without getting you first. Somehow you'll pay. I promise you that you will need me. You'll need me someday, and I'll spit at you and laugh."  
"The only thing I'll ever need you for is as someone for my dog to fuck if she ever gets lonely," Gordie screamed, and slammed the window shut.  
In a daze, he stumbled over to his bed and sat down, replaying the entire argument in his head. He'd never said that many things he didn't mean to anyone.  
He lay down, turned the light out, and cried himself to sleep.  
On the other side of town, Chris did exactly the same thing.  
  
End of Chapter 7 


	8. Bright Lights

OK, we're back down to PG-13. Alas, all is not well for Gordie and Chris. . . Thanks to Charligirl for beta-ing, and thanks to all my wonderful reviewers! I love you guys! Review MORE! MORE MORE MORE MORE. . .  
  
Chapter 8 Songfic to Bright Lights by Matchbox 20  
  
He got out of town on the railway, New York bound  
  
Took all except my name  
  
Another alien on Broadway  
  
Well, some things in this world you just can't change  
  
Some things you can't see until it gets too late  
  
Gordie's house was eerily silent the next morning. It was a Saturday, and normally his parents were up early, buzzing around the kitchen. Light streamed through the windows in the hallway as he stumbled down the stairs and saw a blindingly white sheet of paper on the table.  
  
Gordie- Your dad and I are out with the Michaelson's. We'll be back around three- fix yourself lunch. Don't do anything stupid, and don't leave the house. Don't let anyone you don't know in. Chris left this in the mailbox for you. Love,  
Mom  
  
Great. That's all I need, is to be alone now. He picked up the envelope Chris had left him gingerly, half expecting some kind of bomb. There was a handwritten note inside on a piece of lined paper that fell out of the envelope when Gordie picked it up.  
  
Dear Gordie- I'm leaving today. I've got a train ticket to New York- I'll be taking college courses there. I couldn't leave without saying goodbye to you, but seeing you would be too hard. I promise that it's easier this way. We really don't belong together. Last night proved that. I'm not sticking around to drag you down. I just want you to know that I didn't mean anything I said last night. Your stories are about the best thing that anyone in this world's got. Keep writing, I know I'll see your name someday. I don't hate you, and I'm sorry that it was so hard to tell you I love you.  
  
-Chris  
  
Baby, baby, baby when all your love is gone  
  
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world  
  
And maybe, maybe, maybe  
  
You'll find something that's enough to keep you  
  
But if the bright lights don't receive you  
  
You should turn yourself around and come on home  
  
Oh God, Gordie thought to himself, covering his mouth with his hand. He's gone. He stood there numbly for a few minutes, too shocked to think anything. Nothing was registering- Chris wasn't gone. He couldn't be gone. He just couldn't.  
"Mrs. Chambers," Gordie said into the phone two minutes later, voice shaking, "where is your son?"  
"Which one?"  
"My best friend!" Gordie cried, his voce cracking, wishing that for once Mrs. Chambers weren't so thick sometimes. "Who else would I be talking about?" His eyes were stinging, and it was all he could do not to scream into her ear.  
"Chris went to New York this morning," Mrs. Chambers replied calmly. "He'll be staying with a relative there."  
"And you let him go?" Now Gordie was screaming, shocked out of his mind. "How could you have let him go?!"  
"Chris asked that I don't tell you anything more," Mrs. Chambers said coldly. The next thing he heard was the buzzing of a dial tone in his ear.  
The tears had come now. Warm and hot, they blinded him for a moment, streaming down his cheeks, but he barely noticed as he wiped them away, punching another phone number into the buttons. Justi answered on the first ring.  
"Hello?"  
"Justi, he's gone," Gordie managed to choke out.  
"Who's gone? Gordie, is this you?"  
"Chris. . . . he's. . . he's gone to New York." Even speaking was an effort, and Gordie's voice rose with every word.  
"What?"  
Gordie told her everything in broken sentences, starting with their fight last night and ending with the letter this morning. "Justi. . . my fault. . . I. . . how could I. . . "  
"Don't move," Justi directed, sounding a lot calmer than both of them felt. And for the second time in ten minutes, the dial tone was buzzing in his ear, laughing at him, mocking him, blaming him. . .  
He had to sit. This was too much. He squeezed his eyes closed, bringing more tears to already wet cheeks, trying to wake himself up. This was a dream. It couldn't be real. How could it possibly be real? This was Chris, this was his Chris. This was the Chris he'd shared everything with since before they had been to school. He didn't know life without Chris.  
"Gordie," Justi cried, shoving the door open and not bothering to close it. She raced to his side, taking the letter from him and reading it as he cried.  
"Oh God," she said weakly. "He really is gone."  
"He's gone and it's my fault," Gordie sobbed. "And it's not a dream."  
  
I got a hole in me now  
  
I got a scar I can talk about  
  
He keeps a picture of me in his apartment in the city  
  
But some things in this world  
  
Man, they don't make sense  
  
Some things you don't need until they leave you  
  
And then the things that you miss. . .  
  
Chris had never been on a train before. When it had taken off, jerky and unsure, he'd sat up straight with fear. But the fear was nothing compared to what he'd been feeling all morning.  
Gordie. One word that caused enough pain and happiness to fill an ocean. The only person he'd ever felt love for. Leave it to him to screw it up this royally.  
He looked out the window. This was the last he'd ever see of Castle Rock, he vowed to himself. Everyone he'd ever been close to, he'd hurt. It was going to be different in New York.  
It sure was, he thought. No Gordie. It was hard to imagine seeing a drive-in movie without his best friend there. Hard to imaging doing homework for the college courses without Gordie there to remind him about the Pythagorean Theory.  
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, he kept repeating to himself. You're doing the right thing. You just opened so many doors for Gordie- he can do whatever he wants now.  
The girl next to him was looking at him oddly as he shut his eyes. The train had left early this morning- maybe he could get some sleep. But he knew, even as he thought it, that it would be no good: all his dreams would be filled with Gordie. Filled with his laugh, filled with his smile, filled with everything Chris was living for.  
This might be a good thing for Gordie, but it was shaping up to be the biggest hell Chris had ever been through.  
  
Baby, baby, baby when all your love is gone  
  
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world  
  
And maybe, maybe, maybe  
  
You'll find something that's enough to keep you  
  
But if the bright lights don't receive you  
  
You should turn yourself around and come on home  
  
"I can't believe this," Justi said, wringing her hands and patting Gordie awkwardly. "I can't believe he'd leave without telling anyone."  
"He told his mom," Gordie corrected. He still had not been able to stop the tears, but by now he'd gotten his sobs under control. His shoulders shook whenever he remembered Chris's words that night by the river: "I've never needed to. I've never loved anyone."  
Almost as if reading his mind, Justi spoke quietly. "He did love you, Gordie. I don't think he left because he was angry. This is Chris, remember?" She smiled ruefully. "One time he told me that he thought that you and him were supposed to be together. He told me that the feeling you gave him every time he saw you almost made him believe in God."  
New tears sprung to Gordie's eyes as he remembered something Chris had told him once. "I don't believe in God. This world's too fucked up to have someone that perfect watching over it. Show me something totally pure and perfect, and I swear I'll become a believer right then.'  
"I can't believe I had all that and never even saw it," Gordie said, his voice hitching. "I can't believe I had everything I wanted my whole damned life and never saw it in him." He hurled a vase off the table, relishing the sound it made when it broke- delicate glass against the strong tile of their floor. "What the fuck was I thinking?"  
Justi looked at him sadly, and, her voice barely above a whisper, said, "You weren't."  
  
Let that city take you in (come on home)  
  
Let that city spit you out (come on home)  
  
Let that city take you down, yeah  
  
For God's sakes turn around now  
  
"New York!" The conductor's sharp, loud voice cut into Chris's thoughts. He looked out the window- New York was as big as he'd imagined.  
Mechanically, as if it was someone else controlling his actions, not him, he picked his one bag up and headed out of the train station. The address hand-written on his hand had smeared a little, but it was still readable. He flagged a taxi down and read off the directions.  
"Takes a good two hours to get there, kid," the driver said, looking in the rearview mirror. Chris just nodded warily and fell back against the seat. He couldn't think of anything but Gordie. The train ride had been 37 hours long, plus stops, and his mind hadn't turned from Gordie for more than three minutes. Everything he saw had Gordie in it.  
"Would you like a book to read?" the girl next to him had asked, halfway into the journey.  
Gordie writes books, Chris had thought, and had had to decline and turn away so she wouldn't see the tears welling in his eyes.  
  
Baby, baby, baby when all your love is gone  
  
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world  
  
Yeah well, maybe, maybe, maybe  
  
You'll find something that's enough to keep you  
  
But if the bright lights don't receive you  
  
Well, turn yourself around and come on home.  
  
For a week, Gordie had cried himself to sleep, but there was still that gaping hole in him. He cried for everything he'd ever lost. He thought of Denny, and had finally come up with a reason he hadn't cried half this much for Denny. When someone is dead, you know that they didn't choose to leave you. You know that there's no way they're ever coming back. But Chris. . . Chris had left him because he wanted to. Chris could come back, but something deep inside Gordie told him that he never would.  
Justi had been there with him all week, but no one, not even her, was on the level of sadness Gordie was. It was no one else's fault Chris left, he told himself. It's only my own.  
No one else had known Chris quite as long, or quite as well. No one else knew about his irrational fear of umbrellas. No one else knew that when he was tossing and turning in his sleep, all you had to do was take his hand and rub it for a while, and he'd calm down. No one else knew that he hated blueberries, but loved blueberry muffins. And no one could ever replace Chris.  
  
Yeah, come on home  
  
Baby, baby, baby, baby  
  
Come on home  
  
Yeah, come on home  
  
Yeah, come on home  
  
Yeah, come on home  
  
Baby, baby, baby, baby  
  
Come on home  
  
End of Chapter 8  
  
Lyrics to "Bright Lights" by Matchbox 20 copyrighted exclusively to Rob Thomas and Matchbox 20, 2003 


	9. Pimpmobiles, Diners, and Tight Leather P...

I haven't updated in sooo long. . . I'm so sorry. I was on a week long vacation and TOTALLY forgot to tell anyone. Apparently a couple people thought that was the end. . . God, people! I'd NEVER leave you hanging like that! Review more! I heart reviews!  
  
Chapter 9  
Two weeks passed. September loomed ahead of everyone, but school was the last thing on Gordie's mind.  
He seemed to drift away from everyone and everything. People would speak to him, and he'd look up ten minutes later, asking them to repeat their long-forgotten query.  
"Are you all right, son?" Mrs. Lachance asked over dinner every night. Gordie would always nod, or mumble, or sometimes, if he was feeling strong, try to smile. And Mrs. Lachance, though not looking reassured at all, would return to her dinner.  
Chris had never forgotten Gordie's birthday. Every August 29, he had always gotten a present from Chris, and this year was no exception.  
"Gordie!" his mother screamed up the stairs one morning. "You've got a package!"  
Gordie inched his way downstairs. He didn't do anything fast anymore.  
When he reached his mother, she was holding a small package wrapped with brown paper. She handed it to him and silently left the room.  
He wasn't sure whether to be happy or not when he looked at the postmark and saw that the package was from Chris. He knew exactly what it was- the date was the 29th. Leave it to Chris.  
Pulling the string from around the box and wondering what Chris would have bought him, a note fell out of the folds, and he realized it was a book.  
"Dear Gordie," he read out loud, "this is for you, always the bookworm. It's gotten great reviews here in the city, and I wanted you to be the first in Castle Rock to read it. For what I paid for it, it had damned better be good. I hope you haven't forgotten me. Chris." Was that last part supposed to be some sick sort of joke, he wondered to himself, shaking his head. Sliding his thumb under the paper, he shifted the wrapping to read the title: One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest.  
  
Over the next few days, Gordie attached himself to the book. He'd read it all in one night, of course, staying up later than he ever had before because he didn't want to put Chris's present down. He supposed it was some sort of psychological disease, that he was trying to make it seem like Chris had never left through the book, but he really didn't care. This particular afternoon, Gordie, Teddy, Vern, and Justi were up in the tree house, playing cards. After Gordie lost the eighth hand in a row, Teddy threw down his cards furiously.  
"That is it," he announced. "That is absolutely the fuck it."  
Gordie looked up at his friend in wordless surprise.  
"You mope worse than anyone I've ever seen, Lachance."  
"Sincerely," Vern added. Justi swatted him.  
"You want Chris back, don't you?" Teddy asked matter-of-factly.  
"Well, yeah," Gordie said slowly, as if explaining to a toddler. "Duh."  
"Well then we have to go get him," Teddy replied, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "An idea occurs to me. . . " he continued, looking around for the full effect, ". . . ROAD TRIP!"  
The response was everything he could have expected and more. Vern whooped, Justi hollered, and even Gordie smiled a little.  
"We'll leave tomorrow," Teddy said, his face flushing with excitement, "and we can make it to New York in five days. We'll spend four days there, head home- another five- and that's two weeks! We'll be back in time for school!"  
"Yeah!" Justi cried, standing up. "Did you hear him, Gordie? We're going to get Chris back!" She frowned. He was just sitting there, not doing anything but smiling.  
"I'm going to see Chris," he repeated.  
"You bet, man," Teddy said jubilantly, slapping Gordie on the back. "And don't bother taking a fucking picture. We'll bring him home!"  
Suddenly, Justi wasn't smiling anymore. "Teddy's the only one with a car." she began, "and he won't let anyone else drive it," she continued slowly. "We'll be dead before we get out of Oregon."  
"Lies all lies!" Teddy screeched. "I'm a good driver!"  
Now, every single person in that tree house had had at least one mailbox taken out by Teddy and his city tour bus, now the most feared vehicle in the entire town. So listening to Teddy protest about his driving skills was less than convincing.  
"Plus I'll be the only girl!" Justi continued. "No way am I going on a trip with all of you! No way in hell! I get to bring a girl."  
"Hey, that's cool," Teddy said, licking his lips. "Bring your sister."  
"My sister is eleven years old. You stay away from her, Theodore Louis Duchamp."  
"She's fucking hot."  
"She's my sister! And she's eleven!"  
"Edgar Allen Poe married his thirteen year old cousin."  
"Well, if you marry my eleven year old sister, I'll knock your non- existent balls off." She turned to Gordie. "Who should I bring?"  
He shrugged indifferently. "Bring Cara," he suggested. "I kinda like her."  
Justi nodded. "Okay, I'll ask her."  
"Is she the stacked one?" Teddy inquired. "Cuz if she's the one I'm thinking about, man, no shit, she's stacked."  
"That's Karen," Justi corrected absently.  
  
"This is way too early. This is ungodly. This cannot go unpunished," Justi was mumbling sleepily the next morning when Teddy picked her up at six. They climbed into the back of the bus, where Gordie and Vern had already made themselves comfortable and fallen asleep.  
Teddy's car was unlike anything else in the world. A red bus, Teddy had bought it for five hundred dollars upon realizing that the color was the closest he'd ever get to a sports car. He'd also paid ten dollars extra for a license plate reading "Pimp-mobile". The vehicle was referred to as his "Love Shack." There were two seats in the front: a driver's seat and a passenger's. Other than that, Teddy and Chris had ripped out all of the seats so it resembled a motel room on wheels. Teddy had bolted an unbelievable five cots to the carpeted floor for the trip, and towards the front there was a table, chairs, and a cupboard full of snacks and gas ("Just in case we feel the need to blow something up by the side of the road." "Thank you, Teddy. . . that was. . . reassuring. . . ").  
"Where's Cara?" Gordie asked, raising his head and opening one sleepy eye to look at Justi. She'd set her bag down underneath the cot and had already spread her sleeping bag out and snuggled in. "She couldn't come," Justi replied, stifling a yawn. "She said she had something to do with her family this week."  
"You like the remodeling?" Teddy asked from the front, looking in the rearview mirror at the newest passenger.  
"Yeah! This is incredible!" The Pimpmobile had just undergone the renovations performed by Teddy and Chris. Since the remodeling, it hadn't yet been on a drive this long. The cots, a new addition, had never been tested before. ("Yeah, I'm not sure if the bolts will hold. . . holler if anyone dies back there and I'll pull over at the next exit." "Again, Teddy. . . you know, you're a very reassuring guy.")  
"Ha ha ha!" Teddy screamed in glee, jerking the wheel around as the people in the back of the bus rattled around.  
"Teddy, there are no seat belts back here!" Vern yelled, raising his head from the sleeping bag he'd strewn over the cot. "Keep in mind that when you turn like that, we go flying!"  
It soon became clear that that was the wrong thing to say to Teddy, as he swerved like a maniac all the way out of Oregon for four hours, relishing his friends' screaming.  
At about noon, the swerving stopped and the bus came to a halt.  
"Do you think he drove it off the road?" Vern asked in a hushed tone.  
"Nah," Gordie said, looking out the window next to his cot. "We're at a diner."  
"Lunch!" Teddy announced, jumping out of the vehicle with a shout. Gordie, Vern, and Justi slunk in behind Teddy, giving strangers who stared at them looks that plainly said "We're not with him- we've never seen him before in our lives."  
"Hey, this diner has music!" Teddy realized out loud. "And I love this song!"  
Gordie and Justi exchanged looks, knowing exactly what was coming.  
"Oh ah-ah-ah'll. . . tell you so-o-o-methin'. . . . I think you'll un- der-sta-a-a-and. . . yeah ah-ah-ah'll. . . say that so-o-o-methin'. . . " and here Teddy threw back his head, "I wanna hold your ha-a-a-a-a-and!"  
Justi buried her face in embarrassment watching several people point, whisper, and laugh.  
"Can I. . . . uh, can I help you?" a waitress asked, coming over to their table with a notepad in hand. A perfectly penciled eyebrow was arched almost to her perfect hairline.  
"Hey, baby, what's your sign?" Teddy inquired, leaning over Gordie to look at her. He had transformed instantly from a falsetto singing McCartney wanna-be to a suave, sexy Prince Charming.  
The waitress rolled her eyes and pulled a piece of paper with the words "Get the hell out of my face, loser" printed on it from her apron pocket. "That's my sign," she said dryly.  
Several people in adjacent booths who had been hanging onto every word laughed at this. Teddy turned around and flipped them the bird.  
"Watch it," the waitress said in a bored tone. "What do you want?"  
"Four cheeseburgers, four orders of French fries, and four root beers," Gordie said hurriedly, in an effort to separate Teddy and the waitress as soon as possible. The waitress rolled her eyes and left into the kitchen.  
"That must be Jello, cuz pudding don't shake like that!" Teddy called after her, watching her retreat to the kitchen.  
"God, Teddy," Justi said, the hands covering her face muffling her voice. "I try to get friends and you scare them all off. No wonder Cara didn't come. Family matters, my ass. She's scared of you."  
"I don't blame her," Vern said, sipping the water the busboy had brought when they sat down. "I'm still scared of Teddy."  
"Hey." The five of them turned to see a fat man with a baseball cap approaching them. "You know what I suggest?" They shook their heads. The man pointed at Teddy and said, "Get that kid a muzzle."  
Vern, Gordie, and Justi laughed, but Teddy frowned.  
  
"If you think for one second," Justi began that night, "that I am sleeping here with Teddy right there, you are sadly mistaken."  
"Yeah, she's right," Vern said, eyeing his girlfriend-on-hiatus's curves. "One of us should like keep watch or something. Guard her from Teddy with a gun."  
"I'll guard," Teddy volunteered.  
"You're the one they're guarding me from, Teddy."  
"I'll guard," Gordie said. Justi looked at him oddly. "I'm gay, you freak!" he exclaimed. "I'm not going to make a move on you!"  
"Well, he might, but he'd be imagining you were Chris the whole time," Teddy added. "That does bring some interesting pictures to mind, you know."  
"Sick," Justi said, shaking her head. "Teddy, you have no decency."  
"I like it that way," Teddy said, pulling over to the side of the highway and driving off the road into a patch of ground. "We'll camp here for the night."  
And so began Gordie's insanely long night guarding Justi from Teddy.  
  
"We're here," an extraordinarily fatigued Teddy called from the front of the bus four days later. "Look out your windows, and to the left you will see New York City."  
Everyone made a mad dash from their cots (because it was two in the morning) to the left side of the bus and looked out the windows.  
"Wow," Vern said in awe. "It's huge." He turned around to look at Gordie fearfully. "What if we get here and can't find him?"  
"Vern, could you be less encouraging?" Justi asked irritably. "Of course we'll find him. We've got his address, don't we?"  
"Well, yeah, but. . . "  
"But nothing! We're gonna find him and bring him back, dammit!"  
"And we are stopping at all new restaurants on the way home," Gordie added. "If was get recognized at any one of the diners where Teddy hit on the waitress, I will die of embarrassment."  
"Because you're jealous of me and my mysterious power over women," Teddy called from the front.  
"Oh, yeah," Gordie said, shaking his head. "Me, the gay one in the car. I'm totally in envy over your power over women. It must have something to do with your pants, Teddy."  
"Hey, leave my pants out of this," Teddy yelled back, looking down at his tight leather pants. "They're SEXY!"  
"Yeah, women find it really sexy when guys get stuck in their pants at rest stop bathrooms and have to waddle out and get their gay best friend to help them yank up the pants," Justi added. "I know the whole sight turned me on."  
"I'm sure it did," Teddy agreed. "It turned me on, that's for sure."  
"Ugh!" all three of the passengers in the back yelled at the same time.  
  
End of Chapter 9 


	10. Sex, Lies, and the Absence of Videotape

Sorry it's taken a while to update. I have computer issues. Enjoy.  
  
Chapter 10  
Chris's apartment was boring. There really wasn't any other word for it. His mother had informed him that his great-uncle owned a boarding house, so here he was.  
He had two rooms, and though he had been here for over a month, his rooms were still eerily nondescript. They were decorated, yes, but they didn't reflect anything about him- save for the framed photo of him and Gordie above his bed.  
The girl on the train's name had been Lea Williamson. Though they'd spoken approximately ten words on the train, she seemed to be hell-bent on befriending Chris.  
Chris had always been one to walk. He had never been able to sit still for long periods of time. So it happened that on his first full night in New York, he was walking around Central Park trying to forget Gordie instead of unpacking everything that would remind him.  
And who should he meet sitting on a bench feeding birds but Lea.  
"I like to feed the pigeons," Lea had explained. "It's not really about the birds- rats with wings, they are- but it's nice to come out here and think about everything sometimes." Chris noticed a lilting British accent and wondered why he hadn't heard it before.  
She wasn't bad looking, with straight, sleek shoulder length red hair and emerald eyes. Her nose was crooked, though, as if she'd broken it several times over and it had never been set.  
"Rats with wings, huh?"  
"Yeah. Look at that." She pointed at two birds fighting over a single scrap of bread. "They don't even see the pile of bread beside them. They just want to fight over that one."  
Chris thought of fighting Teddy for marshmallows every time they made s'mores and laughed, though it wasn't really that funny a statement.  
"Hey, where do you live?" Lea asked, setting her purse down and tucking a novel into it. Chris wondered for a second why he was always starting friendships with bookworms, but then realized that the question at hand was probably a little more important.  
"I live over on 82nd Street," Chris answered, gesturing in the general direction.  
"Over by Manhattan, huh?"  
"Yeah."  
"Nice place." She looked down at her lap for a second. "Maybe I could swing by sometime."  
"Yeah," Chris agreed gratefully, noting that he should perhaps try to stop saying 'yeah'. "I'd like that. I'm new here, and I don't know very many people."  
"What's your address?" she asked. "If it's not too far from my house, I'll walk you home."  
"I'm at the boardinghouse by the Post Office," he said, a little embarrassed that he didn't know the street address.  
"Cool," she had said approvingly. "I live on 79th street. That crosses 82nd about a block from your place."  
And so began a friendship.  
Lea, who was born and raised in the house she lived in now, knew everything there was to know about New York. Chris asked her everything he ever needed to know, and she was always right there with an answer.  
"Who's that?" she asked now. They were sitting in his bedroom, on his bed. She often asked that, looking up at the photo of him and Gordie laughing, and until now, he had always responded with a vague "He's my friend," or something equally lame.  
Lea didn't know he was gay. He didn't consider it lying to her, because he had never told her he was straight, now had he; he had just let her think that.  
Tonight, for some reason, he found himself saying something more. "That's Gordie Lachance," he said fondly. He was my best friend back in Oregon."  
"That's like a million miles away from here," she said lightly, lying back on his bed against his pillow. "How do you stand it? I've never even been out of New York."  
"How do I stand what?"  
"Being away from everyone like that."  
He shrugged. "I don't know," he said. "I hurt someone pretty bad back there."  
"You hurt someone?" she repeated incredulously. "I have trouble believing that."  
He closed his eyes. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Lea," he said, propping his head up with his hands.  
"Like what?"  
"Well, you didn't know I hurt anyone, did you?"  
Lea was silent for a moment. "What do you mean, hurt?" she asked after a little while.  
"I said I lot of things that I didn't mean."  
"To who?"  
"No one. Nothing."  
"Tell me!" But his face remained impassive.  
"It was him, wasn't it," Lea said, when Chris, who had not opened his own eyes in a little while, was sure that she was asleep and was preparing to wake her up. She shook him to open his eyes and pointed to the picture above his bed. "He's the one you hurt."  
"Yeah," Chris admitted, but he didn't say anything more than that.  
"That's the only picture you've got in your entire place, Chris," she said. "He's important to you. What the hell did you do that was so bad that you had to leave?"  
"I told you."  
" 'I said things I didn't mean' is not an answer."  
"Well then you're not going to get one."  
There was more silence before Lea broke it again. "How are you doing with school?"  
He shrugged. "I'm doing okay, I guess," he said. Lea had finished middle school and gone straight to work at her father's restaurant, so Chris's college courses were a constant source of curiosity for her.  
"What's your favorite class?"  
"Law."  
"You think you're going to become a lawyer?" she asked, interested. She rolled over to look at him.  
"Yeah, I might," he replied. He had not yet told anyone, including his uncle, that he thought he was most definitely going to go into law. It was the only subject that appealed to him, though he had been told many times by many professors that he had "potential". Damn, education was so much easier when no one knows your name.  
"That'd be good for you," she said, and didn't elaborate on anything other than that.  
  
*Downstairs*  
"We're looking for Chris Chambers," Gordie said to the formidable old man who owned the boardinghouse. "We're friends of his from Oregon."  
The old man's face softened at the name of his great-nephew. "He's room 28," he said. "Second floor. Staircase is over there. Here's a key."  
"I can't believe we're going to see Chris," Justi said excitedly, trying not to squeal. "It'll be so romantic, Gordie."  
But Gordie wasn't so sure. What if Chris had forgotten him in New York? What if- worse- he didn't even want him anymore? He wasn't sure he could handle that. . . the butterflies in his stomach were rising. . .  
  
*Chris's apartment*  
"You'd be a good lawyer," Lea repeated.  
"You think so?"  
"Yeah."  
Chris cocked his head thoughtfully and stared ahead of him.  
"You could be good at a lot of things."  
Chris turned and looked at her. He had managed to miss the subtle change in her voice. Gordie's voice did that, but when it changed tones from happy and light to dark and lustful, you knew it. There was nothing subtle about it.  
So he was completely shocked when she scooted up to sit a mere three inches from him. "You're a good guy, Chris."  
He grinned uncomfortably at her. "Lea. . . if I. . . I think I need a breath mint. . . I . . . excuse me. . . "  
"You're fine," she said soothingly, rubbing his arms now. "You and your breath are both fine."  
"Well, Lea, the thing is, I. . . "  
"Don't," she whispered. "Let your body talk to me."  
And she enveloped him in a searing kiss.  
  
*The stairwell*  
"Will you please just breathe, Lachance? None of us brought any paper bags, so. . . "  
"Teddy, shut up."  
"Just don't fall," Vern cautioned, noting the excessive amount of times Gordie seemed to be tripping up the stairs.  
"I'm good, Vern," Gordie assured him. "I'll be fine. I just. . . I can't wait to see Chris."  
  
*Chris's apartment*  
It had been so long since he had kissed a girl. Where Gordie was rough and muscular, Lea was soft and pretty. But something about it just felt. . . wrong.  
Well, DUH, his brain screamed at him. You're kissing a GIRL!  
"No, Lea," he murmured, and pulled away.  
"Why?"  
"Because. . . I. . . "  
"You don't have a reason," she whispered. "Please, give it a chance."  
And before he knew it, he was struggling against another kiss.  
"Now there's something they don't teach in school," a familiar voice came from above him. He looked up to see Gordie's usually dark eyes black with an emotion he'd never seen.  
  
*The Hallway*  
"You ready, Gord?" Teddy asked, and put the key into the lock.  
"I'm ready," Gordie said, and took a deep breath. Teddy turned the key and shoved the door open.  
"Chris? Chris!" Gordie called, but there was no answer. Then he noticed a door. Pushing it open slowly, he jumped back when he saw Chris writhing under a girl, hands at her shoulders, lips at her mouth. . .  
He made some stupid remark- knowing him, something sarcastic and juvenile- and Chris had snapped up to look at him.  
The girl was pretty, he noted with an intense onslaught of anger, disgust, and jealousy. A redhead. He remembered something Chris had said one time about dating a redhead.  
And then he had stormed out.  
  
"This isn't what it looks like," Chris had screamed after Gordie, but he was long gone now.  
"And this had better not be what I think it is," Lea added, having placed the boy who had just walked in as the boy in the photo.  
"It's everything it looks like and more," Teddy confided to her.  
  
End of Chapter 10 


	11. The Accuracy of Those Damned Magazine Qu...

Chapter 11  
"Well, this is goddamned fucking wonderful," Gordie commented stormily later that night. They'd all been lying awake in their cots in the Pimpmobile for hours talking about what they had just seen.  
"Maybe it wasn't Chris," Justi suggested. "I mean, it could have been like his evil twin or something-"  
"Yeah, and winged monkeys'll fly out of Teddy's ass!" Gordie roared.  
"Now that's happened," Teddy said into the darkness. The cryptic comment hung in the air for a little while until Gordie, unable to keep the smile out of his voice, said, "Care to elaborate, Teddy?" "No, not really. It hurts. It's a stoner thing," he added. "Wonderful." Vern rolled over on his side to look at Gordie, in the cot next to him. "Gordie," he began, "if you can tell me what staying awake worrying all night will accomplish, I'll worry with you until winged monkeys fly out of your ass. But until then, shut the hell up." Gordie's mouth flapped open wordlessly. "Well, I, uh. . . " "Exactly," Justi said, from the other side of Gordie. "Now come on. Get some sleep, Gordie. We have not seen the last of Chris." "What?" "You didn't honestly think we were going to leave Chris alone, did you?" Teddy asked in surprise. "Besides, that redhead was hot! I'm going after her!" Vern rolled his eyes. "Whatever was going on back there, Gordie, I'm sure there's something we don't know." "Yeah, I don't think Chris went to New York to be straight," Justi agreed. "Think about it. Having a girlfriend back in Castle Rock would have helped him a lot. As it is, people remember him as that kid who left and might or might not have been gay." "Maybe you're right," Gordie said doubtfully. "Well we'll never know if you die of an aneurysm from lack of sleep, now will we?" Teddy said. "Go the hell to sleep." "Teddy, that was one of the most poorly constructed sentences I've ever heard." "And I meant every word."  
  
Teddy's Pimpmobile, while being very good to park on the side of the highway in, was not very good for sleeping in. Teddy had left all the windows in when he and Chris had renovated, so for the second time that week, Gordie found his eyes being assaulted by light long before he wanted to wake up. "Morning, you," Justi said, smiling at him. "What the hell. Let me sleep. Go home. Walk home. Just let me sleep, dammit."  
"It's six o'clock."  
"That was my point. Don't use it against me."  
"We've been up for hours," Teddy called from the front, and that's when it sunk into Gordie's brain that the Pimpmobile was moving. "We've got a plan."  
"Eh?"  
"Yes. A plan. That's what normal people do when they want something like this done."  
"No it's not. Normal people grab a machine gun, raise hell, get their boyfriends from the big city, and go home."  
"Gordie Gordie Gordie. Have you really been around us so long that you no longer have a grasp on the meaning of the word normal?" Justi asked sadly. "That's not what normal people do. That's what we do."  
"No difference."  
"Huge difference. We put our heads together and decided that while it's a fun idea to go and pump that bitch full of holes, it's a bad idea because, as you know, Vern is afraid of blood."  
"Oh yeah. Dammit Vern, you spoil everything."  
"I do not!"  
"Do too," Teddy said lazily from the front as he swerved to avoid a passing semi.  
"What's your plan? Do you have a plan, or are we just going home to barrage more waitresses with your lame-ass pickup lines, Teddy?"  
"Well, that was the plan," Vern said, stretching out on his cot.  
"I thought it was good," Teddy contributed.  
"And, of course, when Teddy thinks something is good, it cannot be carried out," Justi added.  
"Exactly," Vern agreed. "So, we came to the conclusion that one of us needs to talk to Chris and find out what's going on."  
"So we bought this." Justi produced a fake moustache. "We'll get Vern to wear it along with a fedora, ask Chris if he wants to buy insurance, and tell him that there's a special rate for people with gay dark-haired lovers."  
"Seriously?"  
"Of course not. She just likes to wear the moustache and the hat," Vern said dismissively, pointing to Justi, who was admiring her new appearance in the mirror.  
"The plan the plan the plan the plan!" Gordie shrieked. "What the hell's the plan?!"  
"That pretty much was the plan if you take away the hat and moustache," Teddy called back.  
"Great," Gordie said, moaning and drawing the blanket around his little chest. "I'm putting my whole life in Vern's hands."  
"Not exactly," Justi corrected. "You're going to talk to Chris."  
"What the hell?!" Gordie shrieked. "I don't want to talk to him! In case you're totally missing everything that happened last night, I'll recap- he left me for a girl in New York!"  
"Now, you don't know that," Justi said reasonably. "We figured we had to hear the story from Chris firsthand."  
"Oh, and how would you do that?" Gordie asked sarcastically. " 'Chris, we saw you making out with a girl, and Gordie's still gay, and he'd just like to know what the fuck is going on'?"  
"Now you're catching on," Vern said, smiling broadly.  
"That's just what we did. You're a very bright boy," Teddy said, stopping the car.  
"Where are we?" Gordie asked.  
"What, it doesn't look familiar?"  
"Well, yeah, but-oh no." They were parked in the parking lot of Chris's boarding house. "You've got to be kidding me. I am not going in there to talk to him. No way in hell."  
"Well duh," Teddy muttered, rolling his eyes. "Never mind, Gordie. You are not a bright boy."  
"Are we on time?" Justi asked, checking the clock."  
"On time for what?"  
"You'll see, Gordie."  
"We're about two minutes early," Teddy announced. "We'll wait here a little while."  
"Wait for what? What, dammit, WHAT?!?"  
"Gordie! Settle down! You'll see!"  
"Time for us to scatter," Teddy reported, opening the door and hopping out. The rest of them all walked down the aisle and headed out, too. Teddy waved before they disappeared behind the building.  
What the hell is this? Gordie asked himself. He lay down on his cot, the same question running through his head. He was almost back asleep when a rapping at the window scared him enough to sit him up straight.  
"Aaah!" But he looked over and saw only. . . Chris.  
Chris was knocking on the bus door, holding a magazine. Gordie looked closer and saw that it was a teen magazine.  
"Gordie, let me in."  
Gordie wanted to laugh, remembering how only a little while ago, the situation had been perfectly reversed. "No," he said simply.  
"Gordie, can you hear me in there? Cuz I'll say what I want to say, but I'm not wasting my breath if you can't even hear me." Gordie moved over and opened a window.  
"I can hear you. But as of now, I don't want to unless this is a very, very good excuse for acting like a fucking man-whore."  
"Whoa. Such language," Chris commented mildly still at the window. His nose was almost pressed against it, making a small circle of fog. Gordie wondered for a second whether he was cold, then decided that he didn't care.  
"Do you have an excuse or not? Get talking!"  
"Fine," Chris said, pulling the magazine up. "In this issue of Girl Today, there is a very interesting article."  
"Oh really."  
"Really. It's entitled Does He Really Love You?"  
"Really now. You're right- that's very interesting, Chris. Does it tell you whether or not that little slut loves you or not?"  
"Now, Gordie. I'd think you'd be a little smarter than that. It's not called 'Does SHE really love you'. It's called 'Does HE really love you'."  
"Congratulations, Chris. You're literate."  
"Indeed. Now, my hope would be that it would help me a little bit. You see, I'm not very good with stuff like this." His grin was impish, and for a second Gordie wanted to let him in, then decided to hear him out.  
"Sign number one. 'He spends time thinking about your feminine charms.' Now, Gordie, this is kind of pressing, and I'm going to ask you to answer truthfully. Do you or do you not pass time by thinking about my feminine charms?"  
"I used to," Gordie said, trying to sound very sarcastic and cutting. To his anger, Chris smiled.  
"Good," he said, producing a small pen and making a check by Sign Number One. "Sign number two: 'He remembers to buy you a gift on your birthday.' When's my birthday, Gordie?" "December 8th." "Yup." He raised his wrist. "Now, I still wear this watch you got me. But you got it before we went out. Does that count, I wonder?"  
"No," Gordie said automatically, but Chris made a small half- checkmark anyway.  
"Sign number three. 'He has a picture of you somewhere in his bedroom.' Do you, Gordie?"  
"Well, yeah, but only because I like the shirt I'm wearing," Gordie grumbled lamely.  
Chris made another checkmark.  
"Sign number four. 'He's met your parents and they love him.' Now, Gordie, here I'd like to say that if I don't date you, my mother will. So I'm going to give that two checkmarks, just because."  
"Now that's cheating."  
"There aren't any rules in the game of love," Chris said seriously. "Sign number five. It says that this one seems simple, but it's the most important one of all. 'He's said he loves you.' Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you said 'I love you' first, right?"  
"Meh," Gordie muttered to the affirmative.  
"Okay," Chris said methodically. "Now, since that sign is sooo important, I'm going to give it two checks."  
"If they wanted it to be worth two, they'd say it."  
"Sometimes you have to read between the lines with these magazine quizzes, Gordie," Chris said gravely. He counted up the checks. "Okay, I have six and a half checkmarks. It says here that if you have five checkmarks, your relationship is 'steamy. You two were obviously destined to be together! Invite us to the wedding!' I kid you not," he added, catching sight of Gordie's face. "That's what it says. See?" He shoved the article in Gordie's face. "Now let me in, you steamy sex machine, you."  
Gordie muttered something and yanked the lever that opened the bus door.  
"Thank you," Chris murmured, coming onto the bus. His breath hung in the air before Gordie shut the door again.  
"Now, I've always kind of questioned the accuracy of those damned magazine quizzes," Chris said, moving closer to Gordie. "So I want you to help me figure out whether they're right or not." He put his hands on Gordie's shoulders and stood at arms' length. "Do you love me or not, Gordie?"  
"I love you," Gordie said, unable to lie to eyes that blue.  
"I love you, too, Gordie," Chris said. "And the redhead?" "A friend of mine. Very Justi-like. I have not yet told her I am. . . er, unavailable." "Amazing, the power you have over women for being such a. . . man's man." "Absolutely amazing," Chris agreed, and pulled Gordie in for a kiss. Outside the bus, Teddy, Vern, and Justi cheered.  
  
End of Chapter 11  
  
I like the way this turned out. I think it's a lot cuter than I could have expected. Eh, whatever. . . I love fluff, but I'm trying to keep a lot of OOC fluff out. Lemme know if you didn't appreciate the "Chris sweetness", as it's been dubbed.  
  
Fanfiction.net, by the way, HATES my mom's computer with a vengeance, so updates are few and far between, as the only place I can ever post something is at the library or my dad's. So I think what I'm going to start doing is getting like three chapters written out on Microsoft Word, saving them onto a floppy, and then posting them three or four at a time like once every two weeks (that's when I go to my dad's). Sorry for the inconvenience.  
  
And last but not least, thank you SOOOOO much for all the nice reviews. I hit twenty the other day! This is so great! My goal is fifty by the time the story's over. (But if it doesn't pick up, that's one hell of a long story, so. . . goal changing in progress.)  
  
Goodbye, happy trails, and GO SEE DICKIE ROBERTS. The Corey Feldman cameo makes it ALL worth it. 


	12. Chris and Gordie have a touching moment ...

Chapter 12  
"I *can't* go back to Castle Rock," Chris was saying, inside the Pimpmobile. The conversation was between Gordie and Chris, who were sitting together on Gordie's cot, but Justi and Vern were sitting on cots next to them, listening and occasionally offering a bit of advice. Teddy was in the front, driving them all to a restaurant, as it was seven in the morning.  
"Why?" Gordie asked again. This was the sixth time they'd had this exchange.  
"Because I have to stay here and finish the semester. It's part of the agreement I have with the Academy."  
"Chris, why can't you just tell them that you have a family emergency or something?"  
"Gordie, the reason I'm here with tuition as low as I have is that they know that I don't have a family."  
"Lies all lies. You have a mother. I know that for sure. She and her obstreperous ways are the reason I didn't follow you sooner."  
"Obstreperous?"  
"It means-"  
"I know what it means. My mother is not obstreperous."  
"Stupid college courses. I could have gotten away with calling her that last year."  
"Anyway, they're letting me go here cheap because all I have is a mother whose income is almost non-existent."  
"Your mother makes enough money."  
"Not enough for me to go here."  
"Well tell them your gerbil died."  
"Would you let a kid go home to Castle Rock and just quit school, never to return, because their gerbil died?"  
Gordie considered it. "Yes. Yes I would."  
"I mean if the kid wasn't me."  
"Oh. No, then, probably not."  
"See?"  
"Do you even have a gerbil?"  
"No." Chris smiled.  
Gordie sighed. "This is awful. I can't wait till term ends to see you again."  
"You don't realize the position you're putting me in, do you?"  
Teddy cackled. "None of us want to know about your positions, Chris," he called from the front.  
Chris chose to ignore that.  
"What do you mean?" Gordie asked, slightly confused.  
"I mean," Chris said heavily, "that you're making me choose between you, my first love, and the dream I've had all my life. In New York I am someone, Gordie. I'm someone other than that littlest Chambers kid. No one knows about my dad. No one knows about Eyeball. Here I'm the kid who gets all his assignments in. I'm the kid that's in the running for Valedictorian. I'm the kid who's gonna be a lawyer someday."  
"A lawyer?"  
"Yeah. In two years, I'm going into law school."  
"There's a law school in Castle Rock. It's a good one."  
"I know," Chris replied, weighing each word before he said it. "And if you really want me to, I'll go back there with you and go to school. But, Gordie, if you're going to stay in Castle Rock all your life, you can't expect me to stay with you."  
"I wasn't planning on it," Gordie said. "But I can't very well just drive home, tell my mother 'Hey, I'm leaving to go live with my gay lover in New York, bye'."  
"Gordie, that's not what I'm asking you to do," Chris said gently. "Let me finish the term here in New York. Go back to Oregon. I'll come home near Christmas, and I won't come back here until I'm out of high school, at least."  
The realization suddenly struck Gordie that Chris was operating under the assumption that the two of them would be together that long. "You think we'll be together then?"  
"Gordie," Chris said, studying Gordie's face for a reaction to what he was about to say, "have you ever met someone that you've wanted to be with more than me?"  
"We're a little bigheaded, aren't we, Chambers?" Vern asked.  
"No, he's right," Gordie said slowly, looking at Chris. "I haven't."  
"I've never met anyone else I considered being with more than you," Chris said.  
"This is touching; we should have popcorn," Justi whispered to Vern, who nodded. Chris and Gordie looked over at them and glared. Vern and Justi shrugged. Gordie sighed in exasperation, shook his head, and turned back to Chris.  
"So you're really willing to give up everything you've got here for me?"  
"Gordie, for crying out loud, I've been here for two weeks. It's not like you're ripping me apart from a life I've had for years."  
"But you'll have been here longer by the time term ends. You'll be more attached. You won't want to leave. I guarantee it."  
"That's not true," Chris corrected.  
"Why? How do you know?"  
"Because I'll have something better than all the law degrees in the world waiting for me back home."  
"Actually, we finished Gordie's birthday cake off a long time ago," Justi put in helpfully.  
"It was good," Teddy added.  
"All frosting-y and cake-y and we had ice cream and chocolate syrup and Gordie even let me put marshmallows on my ice cream." Justi said this all very proudly, looking around for signs of approval. All she got was a nod from Teddy. Somewhere, off in the distance, a cricket chirped.  
"I was talking about Gordie," Chris said after a while, exasperated.  
"Really?"  
"Yeah."  
"Aww."  
"God, Justi, shut up."  
Gordie laughed and found himself wondering why in the world he and Justi had grown apart so much before.  
"Teddy, how many times have you blown past the restaurant and driven around the block again so that Gordie and I can finish this conversation?"  
"Eighteen."  
"Pull in, dammit. I'm hungry. I want an omelette."  
Obligingly, Teddy yanked the wheel sharply and parked the bus in the parking lot of a tiny diner with a big sign advertising pancakes.  
"Chris, I guess I just don't understand all of this."  
"Why not?"  
"This is very new to me."  
"Well, here, I'll condense it. I'll finish the term here, go back to Castle Rock, finish high school there, and go to college. . . somewhere. . . and then we'll go off and see the world together."  
"Not that; I get that. . . I think. I'm just wondering why you left in the first place. Why are we talking about this in New York instead of Oregon?"  
"Gordie, if you don't know why I left by now. . . "  
"Cut the crap, Chambers," Gordie said firmly as a busboy seated them and hurried off. "You left without telling anyone anything. I was worried. And last night, I spent the whole night thinking that you'd left for a girl. Do you know how angry, scared, and sad I was?"  
"I'm sorry."  
"Chris, I'm wondering if you realize the position you're putting me in."  
"Again with the positions. Keep it in the bedroom."  
"Teddy, shut up."  
"God, Justi."  
"Anyway," Chris said, glaring at Teddy and Justi. Then he turned to Gordie and looked so concerned, so caring, that Gordie could feel everything he was about to say melt away. "What's wrong, Gord?"  
"Well, it's just. . . " Gordie fidgeted uncomfortably, shredding his napkin as he talked. "I mean, the way you left. . . if every time we fight, you're going to get it into your head that we don't belong together and leave for a big city, well then. . . "  
"Gordie." Chris's tone was sharp. "For one thing, I'd like to say, for the record, that that was not the only reason I left. I left because I was looking back. Looking back at everything, looking back at Ace and Eyeball beating you up. . . and I couldn't stand it. I guess it was kind of my way of asking you if you really wanted this. I wanted to open a door for you, give you an easy way out of this if you really didn't want it because I knew that you're the type of person who wouldn't ever leave me, no matter how much you might hate the idea of being in a relationship with another guy."  
"Uh, give us all. . . uh. . . five pancake stacks and five large orange juices, please," Justi said, noticing the waitress, who had been standing there for the better part of the conversation and was now looking at them oddly.  
"And give me your number," Teddy added.  
The waitress glared at him and turned to go back to the kitchen.  
"So it took you three thousand miles to ask me if I was comfortable being with you?" Chris opened his mouth to say something, to apologize for being a moron, but Gordie's tone was cheerful and his eyes were smiling. "Remind me never to piss you off."  
Chris grinned and took Gordie's hand. "I promise never to leave you again, man," he said solemnly.  
"I promise never to make you want to leave."  
"I promise to beat the shit out of you two if you get any sappier," Teddy said, eyeing the waitress approaching with their food. She was a different girl than the one who had taken their order. "I wonder if she'd give me her number?"  
  
End of Chapter 12  
  
Word up. . . hey, for all you Harry Potter fans out there, I need help. A couple of months ago (like  
  
June and August, I think), there was this story that I would read almost daily. It was called "The  
  
Survey", and it was by Beachbum (followed by a bunch of numbers that I don't remember).  
  
Anyway, it was funny as HELL, and no matter how many times I reread it, I would still laugh. But about a month and a half ago, it just disappeared from the site entirely. Does anyone know why? Anyone know what happened, or where I can find it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.  
  
Anyway. I apologize- this chapter was a little slower than the last one. I say this, however- the  
  
next chapter is going to be just as (if not more) intense as Chapter 12, but you get some Justi  
  
action! (And to whoever said it in their review, you're so right: Justi DOES need a man. OTHER  
  
than Vern. I'm working on that.) Thanks for reading, and reviewing. I heart you all. Good night! 


	13. While I'm Sorry, I Can't Bring Myself To...

As promised. . . here is the "intense Justi and Vern action". Might not be *quite* what you expected. . .  
  
Chapter 13   
"I, for one, find it incredibly fucked up that I'm letting Chris get away for me for a year."  
"Not a year," Justi corrected sympathetically. "Only about six months."  
Teddy's response was a little more blunt. "Gordie, shut up."  
Gordie sighed and lay down on the bed. "You guys, I couldn't make it two weeks without him without going to New York to try and get him back. And after seeing that Lea thing. . . " He shivered. "I don't know if I'm going to sleep at night."  
"Hey," Vern said, in a rare moment of insight and compassion, "look at it this way. Before, you didn't know why Chris left. Now you know he's gone because he loves you and that he'd never do anything to hurt you."  
Gordie thought about that for a few seconds before offering his friends a weak smile.  
"Yeah, man, yeah, get the happy on."  
"God, Teddy, shut up!" Justi laughed. "Every one of Gordie's facial expressions do not need to be commented on!"  
"I know when I've been snubbed," Teddy muttered, and threw the banana peel he'd been holding at her.  
"Ow! That hit my eye!"  
"Well, it was what I was aiming for. . . "  
Gordie sighed again.  
"What is it now, feelings-boy?"  
Justi scoffed. "Teddy, be mature, please."  
Gordie chose to ignore the two of them scrapping over his constant sighing. "Something just occurred to me."  
"What?" Vern asked attentively, looking back only for a second to throw something at Teddy and Justi in an attempt to shut the two of them up.  
"How come Chris always gets the hot girl buddies?"  
"Do you feel bad because you have no hot girl buddies?" Justi asked, laughing hysterically because Teddy, while never taking his eyes from the road, had reached one arm back to tickle her into a conniption.  
"Animal magnetism," Gordie said, shaking his head with a smile, but Vern was looking at the two of them as if smiling was the last thing in the world he would consider doing right now.  
"Stay away from my girlfriend," he grunted in a barely intelligible voice, obviously trying to look like it didn't bother him, but failing miserably.  
"God, Vern, chill," Teddy muttered, taking back his hand and planting it firmly on the steering wheel, as if daring Vern to make another comment.  
Justi, too, looked at Vern with angry eyes. He responded with a gaze just as angry and very jealous.  
  
The whole trip home, the tension between Vern and Justi mounted until, by the last day, you could almost see it. Neither of them cared about anything else (Gordie had long since taken to sitting up front by Teddy to talk about topics such as school, which started up again in Castle Rock the day after next) enough to stop glaring at each other. But the anger hadn't expressed itself yet, and Gordie was sure he didn't want to be around when it did.  
Unfortunately, he was.  
He wasn't quite sure how, or even why, it had started. He just remembered being at Justi's house. Vern was there, too, and they were all playing a nice, semi-friendly (well, the looks of murderous loathing were absent, anyway) game of rummy when suddenly all hell broke loose.  
Before Gordie knew it, they were yelling and screaming at each other.  
"I can't ever trust you!" Vern screamed. "I turn my back for a second and you're gone!"  
"What the hell kind of claim is that?"  
"You're like some kind of whore! First Chris and Gordie. Now they're both gay! Oh damn! Where are you going now? Oh, hey, Vern's straight! Why don't I give him a whirl!"  
"You wanted this!" Justi shrieked back. "I never got on my knees and begged you to go out with me! You're the one who insisted we go out!"  
"There was no insisting!"  
"There was too!"  
"And now that you're getting bored with me, you figure you'll leave me and go for Teddy!"  
"What?!?"  
"Don't think you're fooling me! I saw how you looked at each other the whole way home!"  
"Excuse me? How dare you insinuate I'd cheat on you, you jealous bastard? I mean, it's true that I could certainly land a better guy than you, and it's true that I probably should, but no matter how much I hated you and your little "boyfriend and girlfriend" spiel, I stuck with you! I've always stuck with you!"  
"Yeah, until someone better walked by! And how often was that? Every ten minutes?"  
"Well, maybe if you weren't such an asshole that Ace Merrill was a better guy than you, it wouldn't happen!"  
"Hey, hey, hey!" Gordie yelled, straining to be heard over the din. "What the hell is going on here?"  
The two of them stared at Gordie.  
"Are you deaf?" Vern finally asked, waving a hand in front of his friend's face. "I mean, there's really no other explanation for asking a question like that. . . "  
"You ass," Justi said in disgust, shaking her head. "Gordie, I really don't know what this is about. One minute, we're all playing cards, and the next-"  
"Shut up!" Vern screamed, his face turning red with anger. "Don't you dare act the innocent woman to Gordie! You leave him the hell out of this!"  
"Well then why the fuck did you pick the fight in front of him?"  
"I didn't! You did!"  
"I did?"  
"Yeah, you did!"  
"I did not!"  
"You did!"  
"You do everything around here," Vern spat. "Or should I say everyone?"  
"Vern, before you I hadn't done anything more than kissing! Ever! Anyone!"  
Vern's face softened a little.  
"And I let you touch me! I let you put your hands on me! You're right, Vern, I am a moron, because I can't think of any girl that I consider smart that would have let you do what you did!" Justi screamed all of this in disgust.  
"You didn't. . . I mean, the two of you never. . . you know. . . ?" Gordie asked her.  
"Oh, no," Justi said, a tear on her cheek. "Thank God I wasn't that stupid."  
Chris would have murdered you, Gordie thought to himself before he could help it, and had to smile.  
"What the hell are you laughing at over there, you asshole?" Vern yelled.  
"Don't you yell at him," Justi shrieked. "You leave him out of this!" By now, her cheeks were filled with tears. It was odd, Gordie thought. She hadn't cried after breaking up with Chris- well, she might have gone home and cried, but she didn't cry in front of him- and she certainly hadn't cried after breaking up with Gordie. He guessed it had more to do with the manner of the breakup than the person, but still. . . this was surreal.  
"Don't cry, Justi," Gordie said vaguely, completely unable to think of anything else to say.  
"Sticking up for the whore of Babylon, are we!" Vern yelled hysterically, looking like he, too, was on the verge of tears.  
"Don't call her that!" Gordie cried. "She's not. . . a whore. She's never been one. Vern, she's been completely faithful to you, and you're really lucky to have her. Well, you were," he amended. "I don't imagine she'll stay with you now. I wouldn't," he added thoughtfully.  
"Oh, here we are taking relationship advice from the gay one," Vern said, throwing his hands up. "You know what, Gordie?"  
Gordie just looked at him mutely.  
"I don't need you! I don't need you, I don't need Justi. . . "  
"Don't think that Teddy'll want to talk to you after this," Justi warned quietly.  
"After I've insulted his whore? I'm sure you're right," Vern said nastily. "You can get back to fucking him now. I'm sure that that's a lot more fun for you than this. Tell me, how much do you get paid for that anyway? Because if you're doing it for free, you've got worse taste than I thought."  
"Shut up!" Justi yelled, sobbing now. "I don't have anything with Teddy!"  
"Emotions never were important to you, were they, Justi?"  
The absurdity of that statement took a while to sink in for Gordie. Justi had, ever since he could remember, since before Gordie had dated her years ago, had always been a very emotional, caring person. She was concerned with everyone before herself, and Gordie could remember, vividly and specifically, several times when she had cried herself to sleep because of things people had said to her, or because of people she couldn't help.  
"Vern, you asshole!" Gordie found himself screaming, right before he belted Vern across the jaw with an anger he didn't know he had. It felt good, shockingly good. So he did it again.  
"Stop!" Justi cried, horrified, but he barely heard her.  
Hitting Vern felt so unbelievably wonderful. With every smack of his flesh against Vern, with every crack of Vern's bones, with every grunt of pain from Vern, who had never before fought anyone, he knew his own tormenters. He saw his own father gasp, he heard Eyeball beg him to stop, he felt Ace's nose break, he watched Vern sink to the floor. . . and then everything went black.   
"God, what the hell happened here?" Gordie heard an out-of-breath Teddy demand from somewhere around him upon waking up. He couldn't bring himself to open his eyes.  
"I don't know," Justi said, and he opened an eye to see her crying, bent over Vern. "He broke up with me, and Gordie was here. . . " The two of them were together on the other side of the room, kneeling. Their shoulders were touching as Teddy ran his hands over Vern's body, checking for broken bones.  
"He broke up with you?"  
"Yeah. . . he was yelling and screaming and everything. . . "  
"In front of Gordie?"  
"Yeah," Justi said, sniffing. "And Gordie just. . . he kinda went insane or something. I've never seen him act like that."  
"What did he do?" Teddy asked softly.  
"He just came at Vern. He hit him like eight times before his eyes rolled back in his head and he kind of just. . . fell."  
"Fell?"  
"It was like he fainted or something. . . "  
"Oh God," Teddy said, cradling Vern' head in his hands. "This is bad." He pointed at a deep gash on the back of his head. "Gordie did that?" he asked in disbelief.  
"He hit his head on the way down, on the coffee table," Justi said hysterically. "I didn't know. . . I didn't know what to do. . . so I came and got you. . . Teddy, is he OK?"  
"He will be," Teddy said, but it wasn't very confident. "Chris and I have both been worse than this before, and look at us now." Justi and Teddy shared a weak laugh.  
"What about Gordie?" Teddy asked. "Why's he knocked out?"  
"Well," Justi said, sounding very small, "he wouldn't stop hitting Vern, so I hit him on the back of the head with the candleholder." She pointed to a candelabrum, and Gordie became vaguely aware of a throbbing pain in the back of his head.  
"God, Justi, are you sure you didn't kill him?" Teddy asked, his already strained voice filling with even more worry as he headed over to Gordie, both he and Justi unaware that Gordie was hearing them speak.  
"No, she didn't kill me," Gordie said, sitting up weakly and touching the back of his head gingerly. "I'm not even bleeding."  
"Gordie, what the hell?" Teddy asked, rushing behind him to put a hand on the small of his back. "What the fuck were you thinking?"  
"I wasn't," Gordie admitted. "All I could think was that Vern was hurting you," he looked at Justi, "the same way Chris hurt me. . . I couldn't let him. . . he was so wrong. . . "  
"I don't need you to beat someone up to know I'm not a whore," Justi said softly, but she looked interested in what he had said about Chris. Neither Chris nor Gordie had ever spoken to anyone about the night before Chris had left.  
"I know," Gordie said, even more quietly. "I just. . . I couldn't stand by and watch."  
"Why didn't you stop?" Justi asked. Her eyes were misted over again, and Gordie prayed that she wouldn't start crying again. He knew that if she started, he wouldn't be able to stop.  
"I don't know," he said. "Every time I hit him, I saw someone else. . . I saw Eyeball. I saw Ace. I saw my dad. I saw Pressman, that time he bitched at your dad, Teddy. . . "  
Teddy. Teddy's spin on all of this, Gordie realized, was quite unique. "Chris and I have both been worse than this before. . . " No wonder he was acting so scared, Gordie realized. When Gordie considered Teddy's closest friends, he realized that none of them had ever really fought anyone else. Teddy had surrounded himself with people who didn't like to hurt other people. The truth was hitting him over the head like a lead weight now: when poor Teddy looked at Gordie now, he saw his father. He saw the man that had been hurting him since he was born. And for the first time ever, Teddy was shying away from Gordie.  
No one had ever before been afraid of Gordie. He had always been "that little Lachance kid." But the look Teddy was giving him frightened him down to his bones.  
"I'm sorry, Ted," Gordie said weakly, and Teddy knew he understood.  
"Gordie, you. . . you're not. . . "  
"Teddy, I don't like hurting people," he said slowly. "I'm never going to do anything like this again."  
"Teddy, he couldn't take you," Justi said immediately, and Teddy laughed.  
"I'm sorry, you guys," Gordie sighed. "I'm so, so sorry. I never meant to hurt anyone."  
"I know," Justi and Teddy said at the same time.  
"Sometimes people snap," Teddy said wearily. "It doesn't mean you're going to do it again, and it doesn't mean you're a bad person."  
Gordie and Justi looked at each other and furrowed their eyebrows. Teddy had never been this serious in front of either of them.  
Suddenly, Justi had a realization.  
"Hey, you think we should wake up Vern?" End of Chapter 13  
  
This chapter is kind of weird, in that generally, when I write Vern, he's a very passive-aggressive person. After reading this, though, and really thinking about it, it doesn't seem *that* out of character for him. You know he was just WAITING to snap after seeing Justi with all his guy friends. What a jealous freak.  
  
It feels good to be back with a computer again. . . expect Chapter 14 up momentarily!!!  
  
. . . On a side note. . . I REALLY like what we get to see of Teddy's character in this chapter. I never really thought of it that way. . . 


	14. You Can Check Out Any Time You Like, But...

Chapter 14  
"Gordie, spell 'enigma'."  
"Whaaa. . . ?"  
"Enigma," Justi muttered, elbowing him awake sharply. He snapped his head up to look at his English teacher, Mr. Cave, staring him down. "Spell it. Now."  
Gordie hated school. Not in an intense, violent fashion, but in a quiet, ever-present loathing sense.  
"Uh. . . e-n-i-g-m-a."  
Mr. Cave scrutinized him a few seconds longer, as if checking to see that he wasn't mentally cheating. When he could find nothing to yell at Gordie for, he moved down the row to pick on a girl named Julie.  
"Gordie, getting good grades to pass all your classes does not generally involve falling asleep every ten minutes," whispered Justi into his ear. "If you get held back, you won't be in any of Chris's classes next semester."  
"Even if I got held back, I might get into his gym class."  
"You might."  
"The thought of watching a sweaty, shirtless Chris change every day is enough to keep me asleep during classes."  
"Gordie, that's nasty. You're gross. You're going to be in eleventh grade forever. You're never going to have another class with Chris again." "Other than gym class. Besides, you never daydreamed about a naked Chris?"  
"I didn't say that. I just said that I didn't want to hear about YOU daydreaming about a naked Chris. Besides, if you pass all your classes this semester and get a class next semester with him, you could see a sweaty, topless Chris change every day and then come back and "silent read" with him for an hour."  
Gordie sat up straight and paid attention the rest of the period.  
  
"So, man, how was your first day?" Teddy asked, clapping Gordie on the back. Teddy and Vern's school let out ten minutes earlier than Gordie and Justi's, and, as Vern wasn't speaking to any of them, Teddy had ridden his bike over to the college-prep school to meet them.  
"Eh, it was okay," Gordie said, without much interest.  
"Mr. Cave hate you as much as he did last year?"  
"Yep." The thing about living in a town as small as Castle Rock was that the teachers taught all grades, so you had them the whole time you were at a particular school.  
"That sucks."  
"Yep," Gordie agreed, remembering all the late-night detentions he'd had with Mr. Cave the previous year. Every other teacher he'd ever had had liked him, or at least not openly hated him, like Mr. Cave. He'd had one, maybe two detentions from every other in the school, and he'd had seventeen from Mr. Cave. The slightest infraction would earn him a finger snap from the front of the class, and he'd hear Mr. Cave's clean, clipped, refined tone: "Lachance, detention."  
Justi sighed and shifted her backpack. "How 'bout you, Ted? How was your first day?"  
"Ironically enough, we spent the World History period learning about the Whore of Babylon," he said, with a small wink to Justi.  
"Really?" she asked, shoving long, black hair out of her eyes. Though it was September, it was still hot, and Justi, who always wore her hair down to school, was suffering more than either of the boys.  
"Really really. I laughed out loud a few times. Damn teacher almost gave me a detention. On the first day!"  
"How did Vern react?" Gordie asked with a small chuckle. "To the Whore of Babylon thing." He grinned, picturing Vern having to learn about something like that.  
"I swear to God I heard him muttering 'Justi' under his breath the whole time," Teddy said, grinning. "Anyway, we spent the rest of the day making cabinets."  
"That sounds riveting," Justi said sarcastically.  
"Well, kinda. I made mine into a gun cabinet and then Mrs. Johansen yelled at me. Apparently that's wrong."  
"A gun cabinet," Justi repeated dubiously.  
"Of course a gun cabinet," Teddy said, now thoroughly disgusted at the school. "What other kind of cabinet does a real man make, I ask you?"  
"You could have made a china cabinet."  
"I could have made a china cabinet? Oh, a china cabinet! Of course! Why didn't I think of that? And I could have painted it pink, too, I suppose? With little adorable bunnies flopping around as a cute little border?"  
"God, you two are so weird," Gordie said. "Hey, Justi, tell him about Alex."  
Justi gasped. "Oh my God, Teddy, listen to this. There's this kid in some of my and Gordie's classes named Alex. He's like the hottest guy ever! He's smart, he's funny, he's nice, he's-"  
"He's so gay," Gordie interrupted. "Hey, I of all people can tell," he added after seeing the weird looks on Teddy and Justi's faces.  
"He is not gay," Justi said, rolling her eyes at Gordie and his lack of supportiveness.  
"I bet he's gay," Teddy said, shaking his head. "Besides, I have to tell you about this hot girl named Yvonne-"  
"What kind of name is Yvonne?" Justi asked, rolling the name around on her tongue. 'That's a weird name." [A/N- If anyone's reading this who is actually named Yvonne, I'm sorry.]  
"If you had legs like this girl, you really wouldn't be worried about the name. I'm not," Teddy added dreamily.  
"Did you just call my legs fat?" Justi asked, smiling and yet hitting Teddy across the face with a folder at the same time.  
"Not quite," Teddy said, rubbing the folder-shaped red mark on his cheek. "If I were calling you fat, you'd know it."  
"How?"  
"I'm pretty blunt about stuff like that. Hey Gordie, you're fat."  
Gordie looked down at his 103 pound frame.  
"See? People know it when I call them fat."  
"I can see the look of crushed horror on Gordie's face. Perhaps you should diet, Gord."  
"If I get any thinner, I might fall over the next time someone sneezes."  
"Would you die, do you think?"  
"I might."  
"Get the pepper," Teddy whispered.  
"Offhand, I can think of a few who wouldn't miss him," a strange voice from behind them said, and the three of them wheeled around to see Mr. Cave standing there, looking quite bitter.  
"Mr. Cave," Justi began, shocked to hear something like that out of a teacher's mouth, "you can't-"  
"Shut up, girl," Mr. Cave said quickly. "I'll talk to Mr. Lachance however I want to when school is not in session."  
This was odd- normally, Mr. Cave went out of his way to avoid Gordie. What is going on here? Gordie wondered.  
"Lachance, if I'm not wrong, you submitted a short story to Life Magazine this summer." It was not a question, it was a statement.  
"Yes, sir."  
Mr. Cave looked at Teddy and Justi as if just realizing they were there and waved a hand at them.  
"We're not going anywhere," Teddy said, scowling, and Justi drew herself up to her full height of five foot four and stood her ground.  
"You'll go, or you'll all get week-long detentions."  
"You don't even teach at my school!" Teddy said, with a look that plainly said "You moron."  
"My brother does."  
Teddy and Justi looked at each other and backed off to go sit down at a fountain across the street.  
"Lachance," he said, looking around to make sure no one else was around, "you are a homosexual."  
Again, there was no question mark at the end. Obviously his teacher knew, so Gordie decided there was no point in denying it. "How did you know?" "It's hard to miss if you know what to look for. I assume this has something to do with the absence of Chambers?"  
"Yes, over the summer, we ended up- know. . . know what to. . . look for?" Gordie asked slowly, abandoning the telling of the saga of him and Chris quickly and looking up at Mr. Cave. There was something his heart was telling him, but his brain knew that there was no way. . . no way in hell. . .  
"Yes, I'm a homosexual too," Mr. Cave said very lightly. And suddenly everything fell into place.  
"All those detentions. . . all those years. . . you were. . . "  
"No, of course not," Mr. Cave said, before Gordie could even finish his thought. "Homosexuality is not something to be punished for, Lachance."  
"So you. . . you're. . . I don't believe it. . . you can't be. . . "  
"Well, I am."  
Gordie shook his head, unable to believe what he had just heard. "Sir," he said, very slowly and feeling incredibly overwhelmed, "this is very. . . enlightening. . . but do you have a point?"  
"Of course I have a point," Mr. Cave said, looking at Gordie as if he were insane. "I wanted to tell you that not everyone will be as open as your friends are to this."  
Suddenly, Gordie found himself realizing that never, outside of school, had he ever seen Mr. Cave with anyone. Not a friend, not a relative. . . no one. Mr. Cave had always, to his knowledge, been completely alone.  
"A lot of people will refuse to associate with you," Mr. Cave continued, looking at his spotless-as-always blazer jacket. Black, like every other day of the year. "Some may even grow to hate you."  
"Sir, I-"  
"So move," Mr. Cave plunged on, seeming to not even hear his student. "Move far away. I can't get out- I'm too old. I have nowhere to go. But you- you're young. You can do anything you want. And it isn't as if your father cares and is going to stop you."  
"Hey!"  
"If you deny it, I'll take it back," Mr. Cave relied coolly. Gordie remained silent. So did Mr. Cave.  
After a few minutes, the teacher cleared his throat and moved on. "I wanted to tell you one more thing." Gordie didn't think he had ever had Mr. Cave say this much to him before.  
"What's that?" Gordie asked, almost warily.  
"I wanted to tell you that you've got a gift for writing that a lot of people envy."  
"Envy?"  
"Myself included."  
That was it. Mr. Cave hadn't been punishing him all these years. At least, if he had, it hadn't been because he was gay. It had been because he could write. Mr. Cave was jealous of him.  
"Is that why all the. . . all the detentions. . ."  
"Yes. And," Mr. Cave added, turning around, "don't think that this year will be any different. Remember what I said. Get as far away from here as you can. This place is full of ignorance."  
"Mr. Cave, can I tell-"  
"You may tell whoever you like about me," the aging teacher said. "I would ask you to keep in mind, though, how you would feel if I let the same number of people know about you."  
Gordie nodded.  
"Good afternoon, Lachance." Mr. Cave turned around and walked down the street, his long legs carrying him quickly down the lane until he wasn't visible anymore.  
"What was that all about?" Justi asked, hurrying across the street with Teddy after Mr. Cave had disappeared.  
Gordie sighed. "I've got a detention in his class," he said heavily. "I've got to stop falling asleep."  
  
End of Chapter 14  
  
This is short, yes. But you know what? I really, really like this chapter. I mean, for one thing, it opens COUNTLESS possibilities for more road trips ["Say, anyone ever been to Disneyland?"]. But even more than that, it expresses the attitude that a lot of people had towards gays back in the 1950s. Gordie realizing that Mr. Cave is really totally alone was a great scene for me to write, only because now we know just how much Gordie is willing to risk so that he can be with Chris. (Aaaaw! Gordie hearts him!)  
  
Thanks so much to all my reviewers. Moonriverandme HEARTS my story! I'm so beyond touched! I heart your story too! (And, uh, speaking of Moon River, I bought the music to that the other day and I've been playing it on the piano all day every day now. . . the obsession with the movie is NOT ENOUGH. . . WHOOOO!)  
  
One more thing- my computer is really lame. I can only get online at certain times (the "non-peak hours". DAMN YOU COMCAST), so it took a lot longer to post this than I thought it would. Sorry! 


	15. Chris and the Grand Poetry Attempt

Chapter 15  
  
"I have to get Chris a gift," Gordie was saying, hands gesturing wildly in the air, lying on his back on the cot. He, Justi and Teddy were sitting around the tree house on a lazy Saturday afternoon. It was late November, and it had just started getting cold. Leaves were all fallen, and in the mornings, frost lined the window. They had all started wearing jackets to school and seeing their breath in the early morning.  
"Lie," Teddy said instantly. "You most certainly do not."  
"How can I get away with NOT getting him a Christmas gift?" Gordie asked, looking at Teddy like he was the dumbest person in the world.  
"I never got Frieda a present!"  
"And see how well off you two are?" Justi put in dryly, rolling her eyes at the mention of Teddy's ex-girlfriend, who had recently thrown a rock through Teddy's window bearing the note 'Fuck off and die Duchamp'. "You're absolutely right, Gordie. You must get him a present."  
"But what the hell do you get someone like Chris?" Gordie asked, shaking his head.  
Justi shook her head. "I don't know," she said.  
"Do they sell balls?"  
"Teddy!"  
"Chris is not lacking in that department," Gordie said, closing his eyes.  
"That was more than I needed to know," Teddy muttered.  
"Well then never make a comment like that again."  
Justi just smiled. "Hey, you guys, you haven't met my boyfriend yet."  
Gordie sat up fast enough to crack his head on the shelf above the cot. "What?"  
"You didn't know, Lachance?" Teddy asked, half-mockingly.  
"Justi, you have a boyfriend?"  
"And he's soooo dreamy," Teddy imitated.  
"Ignore him, Gordie," Justi said impatiently, waving her hand for Teddy to shut up. "His name is Jude."  
"Jude Gray?" Gordie cocked his head to the side.  
"Yeah. . . do you know him?"  
"He's in my math class."  
"Do you like him?"  
"Oh yeah, he's hot!"  
Justi made a face.  
"Joke. I am not going to steal your man, Justi, I promise."  
Justi shook her head, but kept looking at Gordie suspiciously, until finally Teddy and Gordie had to look at each other and laugh.  
For the next hour, Justi and Teddy played poker, trying to pass time, but Gordie's mind remained on the dilemma of what to get Chris for Christmas. "Teddy, can I take your car to the store?"  
"No. If you ask nicely I will consider driving you."  
"Why the hell can't I drive your car?"  
"Because, Lachance. No one drives my car but me."  
Teddy, though, seemed obsessed with stopping at every single stop sign and pulling into every single parking lot. Gordie, exasperated after a few hours of this, yelled his rebellion.  
"Teddy, just drive, dammit!"  
"Fine then, Mr. Bossy-the-Cow."  
"You think I'm Bossy the COW?" Gordie repeated indignantly.  
"Mr. Bossy-the-Cow."  
"Oh, that makes it all better."  
"You don't even know where you want to go yet, cock-knocker!"  
Gordie rolled his eyes. "Which is why you should be driving like a normal person, you loser. This is going to take all day anyway."  
Teddy groaned. "Wonderful. An all-day shopping expedition with a gay guy."  
"That was bitter, Teddy. Any underlying issues you'd like to talk about?"  
"Shut up, Lachance," Teddy muttered, laughing. "Where are we going to first?" he asked, as the bigger city of Greenview, Oregon came into view. Most of the shopping was done at Greenview, as Castle Rock had nothing but a general grocery store.  
"Eh. . . I dunno. . . how does the record shop sound?"  
"The record shop," Teddy repeated dubiously.  
"Yes, the record shop! What the hell's the matter with the record shop? Chris loves music!"  
"Well, duh, Lachance, you fucking moron. And what does he want more than anything in the world because he loves music?"  
"Uh. . . a tuning fork?"  
"Wow, I guess I never realized you were such a moron," Teddy said, shaking his head and keeping his eyes on the road. "No, he wants a guitar."  
Gordie smacked his forehead. "Why didn't I think of that?" Chris had played guitar for years now, taking lessons at the Community Center and using his instructor's guitar. But neither he nor his mother had ever been able to afford to buy him one.  
"Because you're a loser and I'm better than you."  
"Wrong!"  
"So right. I'm better than you."  
"No, you're not."  
"Say it! Say it or I swear I'll turn around and go home like a bat out of hell!"  
Gordie sighed. "You're better than me."  
"Yee ha!"  
  
"This one's pretty."  
"Gordie, you don't buy a guitar because it's pretty."  
"Some of us do."  
"Well, refrain from being one of them. Here, get this one."  
"Teddy, it's like the guitar of doom."  
"I'm betting you could spraypaint over the skulls and crossbones if you really wanted to."  
"Why don't I skip that and get this one?"  
"Because Chris would beat you over the head with it, that's why."  
"What makes you say that?"  
"The fact that it's pink has something to do with it. God, I didn't even know they made pink guitars. . . "  
Half an hour later, the two of them had combed the whole store, with one guitar left.  
"That one's nice," Gordie commented.  
"Yeah," agreed Teddy. He picked it up and plucked a string. "Nice sound."  
"That one is nice," a salesman agreed. "It's said that if you give that particular guitar to someone as a gift, there's a true love between the giver and the receiver."  
"Huh? Huh?" Teddy muttered, elbowing Gordie.  
"Yeah, Teddy, I heard."  
"Birthday gift for someone?" the clerk inquired.  
"No, Christmas present," Gordie corrected. "They've, uh, been playing a while, and I want to get them a really nice guitar. I'm willing to spend up to a hundred bucks."  
"Well, this one's forty-seven dollars, and the case is eighteen. The case isn't top quality, though, if you'd like to upgrade-"  
"The case is fine," Gordie cut in. "Is there anything else I need? I don't know much about guitars."  
Four picks, one shoulder strap, and seventy-two dollars later, Teddy and Gordie were whooping and cheering in the parking lot.  
"Lachance, you just landed the best Christmas gift ever! Hell yeah, man, he'll be making you breakfast in bed for a fucking year!"  
"How did you know? I never would have thought to get him a guitar!"  
"Well, me and Vern were going to ask if you wanted to help us buy one for him for his birthday, but that was before you. . . got gay-"  
"Well said, Teddy."  
"-And we figured you might like to get one for him yourself."  
"You've had this idea for over six months and never told me? I hate you!"  
"Well, you can walk home then, dammit!"  
"Never mind, Teddy, I love you."  
Teddy looked at him oddly. "Again I say, you can walk home."  
  
"It has to be perfect," Chris said to Lea later that week, walking around the university bookstore. "The perfect gift. I can't get him just anything. I don't even know if I should get him a book. I mean, he owns like every one ever made. . . "  
"Well, then don't get him one that's been made yet," Lea said, paying for her purchases and leading Chris out of the bookstore.  
"What? Explain yourself, woman."  
"Why don't you write a whole bunch of poems for him, bind them into a book, and give it to him?"  
"Lea, I don't do poetry."  
"Sure you do. I've seen you make it up all the time, on the spot." Chris sighed and cleared his throat. "Gordie, Gordie, you really make me horny / When I'm with you, I don't need porn-y."  
"Okay, leave that one out of the anthology."  
"Screw it, Lea, I'm not writing- or giving- any poetry to anyone. Ever."  
"An idea occurs to me," she said slowly.  
"Speak, woman."  
"Stop calling me woman!"  
"Stop making me call you woman."  
"Anyway!"  
"Yes, anyway. The idea."  
"Put together a scrapbook."  
"No poetry."  
"I meant, like a photo album. There are so many photos in that box you keep under your bed. . . if you put them all into an album-"  
"Then he'd think I was a stalker."  
"He would not! He'd think it was sweet."  
Chris sighed. "All right, I'll make an album. Where the hell do you get a blank photo book, anyway?"  
"A lot of places sell them."  
"You go in and buy it. They'll look at me like I'm gay or something."  
"You are gay."  
"That is not yet a publicly known fact."  
  
"Aw, Chris, that's coming along great!" Lea commented later that night. Chris was sitting at his coffee table, gluing photographs into the book. "I made you some soup."  
"Thanks," he said distractedly. "Hey, look at this one." He was holding a picture of he and Gordie, laughing and holding cotton candy sticks at the county fair. "Look how little we are."  
"Oh my God!" Lea squealed. "You make the cutest little eight year old- "  
"Yeah, check out our matching bowl haircuts. . ."  
"Where's this?" Lea asked.  
"That's Vern's tenth birthday party," Chris said, taking the picture from her. "Teddy shoved him into the cake, and then Vern dumped ice cream down Teddy's pants. . . it was quite a party."  
"Sounds like it."  
"I'd forgotten I had all these," Chris said, riffling through the box. "I can't believe I've kept them all."  
"You'll thank yourself someday."  
"I'm thanking myself now." Chris smiled. "Look how cute Gordie was." A three year old Gordie peered up at them from the black and white living room of 1950.  
"Look how cute the two of you are together," Lea said, taking another picture up. This was Chris and Gordie, laughing again, only this time they were soaking wet. Gordie was holding a water balloon, and Chris was holding a hose.  
"Good times," Chris said fondly. "No matter how many times he hit me with a water balloon, he never seemed to remember that I always ended up with the hose. . . "  
Lea let herself out at about eleven that night, and Chris fell asleep holding a picture of Gordie.  
  
End of Chapter 15  
  
Yay. . . Chapter 15's done. . . I think it ended up kind of cute.  
  
Thanks to all my lovely reviewers. . . ALEKA REVIEWED MY STORY TWICE! Oh! What now! (This has always been a personal goal of mine. . . I'm in deep admiration of everything she's ever written.)  
  
Moonriverandme- I heart your story! I heart the positive reviews you give me!  
  
I am totally incapable of reviewing anything, by the way. Every time I click the review button, my computer gives me some "Script error" crap. I just thought I'd make that known so that nobody thought I was a pompous arrogant jerk who's too lazy, stupid, and/or conceited to ever review anything.  
  
I am REALLY REALLY hyper right now. . . my grandma works at Starbucks and I just got a sixteen-pack of frappuccinos from her for five bucks (WHAT NOW, HUH?), so I've been slurping all day. And it's my dad's birthday, so we're all like "YOU SAY IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY!"  
  
I'm gonna stop typing now (we just got a new keyboard and I really really like to type so I've been typing nonsense all day), but first I'd like to say that I'm going back to my mom's house (with the crappy computer) on Tuesday. I'm going to seriously make an effort to get Chapter 16 up by then.  
  
Muchas Heartas, The Masked Penguin 


	16. Teddy Demonstrates the Dance of the Wing...

When I said this was the last update for a while I lied. Oops.  
  
This isn't a new chapter, though. This is chapter 16- I uploaded it wrong or something and it came out all smooshed. I got a call from one of my friends ("Caroline, you know how you always say that you're going to kill the next person who smooshes everything together on fanfiction.net?" "Uh, yeah. . . " "Well. . . ") letting me know that I screwed up. Now, I have no Internet connection at my mom's, so what I had to end up doing was walking over to the middle school, which had let out about a half hour previously, going up to one of the teachers I was really close to in eighth grade (and who I live almost next-door to now) and BEGGING him to drive me to the library. . . so if the spacing comes out pretty over-the-top, it's because I didn't want anyone to have to sort through this huge block of text.  
  
I heart everyone!!! Review my story!! THANKS!  
  
Chapter 16  
  
It appeared to Chris that train rides, as you get more and more experienced, do not get  
  
easier.  
  
On a train to Portland, the rickety takeoff still startled him. The hurtling speed still threw  
  
him. And the repetitiveness of it all still made him restless. He made a vow never to ride a  
  
train again.  
  
Leaving New York had been hard. Lea had been in tears at the train station, after  
  
promising herself in the taxi the two had shared on the way there that she wouldn't cry.  
  
Thankfully, she hadn't made a scene, but a little bit of Chris had still died when she had  
  
started to cry.  
  
He'd had considerably more baggage coming home than he'd had when he'd first arrived  
  
in New York. He'd stepped off the train with two bags to his name, and he was coming home  
  
with five. One of them, a small carryon, had Gordie's Christmas gift in it.  
  
Christmas gift. Could it really be that Christmas was only a week away? It was December  
  
seventeenth- almost a month had passed since Chris had made the scrapbook, but a shiver of  
  
excitement still went through him whenever he looked at it, thinking of Gordie's reaction.  
  
He had almost no desire to look around him. There were about ten people in his  
  
compartment, it looked like. The man next to him looked vaguely familiar, but then, so did  
  
everyone in a city as big as New York. His head seemed to grow heavier and heavier as the  
  
hours passed, until finally, unable- and unwilling- to hold it up any longer, he dropped his  
  
head onto his shoulder and fell asleep.  
  
"Where are you headed?" an attendant asked, poking him awake. He snorted and  
  
checked his watch.  
  
"Uh, Greenview," he murmured sleepily. "Where are we?"  
  
"Boise," she said sweetly.  
  
"That's in. . . like. . . Idaho. . . "  
  
"Yessir," she said, smiling. "That it is. I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to  
  
wake up halfway to Greenview and realize you should have gotten off an hour ago."  
  
"Thanks," he said gratefully. "I probably *would* have slept through it."  
  
She laughed. "We get that a lot, but it's never happened on my shift. I don't want to  
  
start now."  
  
"I don't blame you." He smiled and stretched. "If I fall asleep again, wake me when  
  
we get to Greenview, will you, love?"  
  
She blushed. "Of course, sir," she said, laughing timidly at being addressed as "love"  
  
by this tall, handsome stranger and scurrying back to the front of the train.  
  
"You still got it, Chambers," he muttered to himself, and the man next to him burst  
  
out laughing. "I remember being that young," the man said, smiling. The man still looked  
  
incredibly familiar, although Chris couldn't place him. . . until. . .  
  
"Mr. Cave? No way!"  
  
"Yes, Chambers, 'way'."  
  
"What the hell?. . . I mean. . . heck. . . er. . . "  
  
"You are not in school, Mr. Chambers. I cannot very well give you a detention here on  
  
this train. I assume, however, you are heading back to Castle Rock to resume your  
  
education?"  
  
"Uh, yeah. . . and if you could. . . not kill me. . . it would be. . . appreciated. . ."  
  
"Relax, Chambers. Your death will not be at the hands of English teacher."  
  
"Um, thank you, sir. If you don't mind me asking. . . what the hell are you doing  
  
here?"  
  
"Don't push it."  
  
"Sorry. Heck. What the heck are you doing here?"  
  
"Contrary to popular belief, Chambers, while not a socialite, I am neither an isolated hermit."  
  
"Um, what?"  
  
"I have a life."  
  
"Oh! Well, uh, yeah, I-"  
  
"And I also happen to know something about you that I don't think you're aware of my  
  
knowledge of."  
  
"Okay, I stick to my story- I couldn't possibly have done that. . . I wasn't even in  
  
school that day. . . I-"  
  
"No, Chambers. I was referring to something else." Chris sat back, stumped. Normally,  
  
he had very few secrets- at least, none that his English teacher would care about. "What?"  
  
"You and Gordie." Chris choked and coughed. "How do you accomplish choking without  
  
eating or drinking anything?"  
  
"It's easy. The most feared figure in my entire education tells me he knows I'm an ass  
  
screwer. You try it."  
  
"A *what*, excuse me?"  
  
"Uh, a. . . uh. . . gay person. . . "  
  
"Well here. Let me level the playing field. I'm gay too." Chris choked again. "Water,  
  
here, please?" Mr. Cave said crisply to a passing attendant, who handed him a water bottle  
  
from the cart she was pushing. He gave it to Chris. "Choking is not a healthy thing."  
  
"Uh, thanks," Chris said, gulping down the water, though he wasn't really thirsty. "Sir,  
  
if I can ask again, what are you doing here?"  
  
"Lack of profanity," Mr. Cave observed, a smile playing around his lips. "Well done."  
  
Chris sat and looked at him, arms folded patiently, not one to let Mr. Cave get around  
  
the question. "I have family in Omaha," Mr. Cave explained. "I visit my mother and father  
  
over the break, and then I head over to Boise to visit my children." Chris, who had been mid-  
  
gulp, choked for a third time. "At least this time you choked on something."  
  
"Uh. . . Mr. Cave, don't take this the wrong way. . but. . . uh. . . children?" "Yes.  
  
Madeleine is 14, Jenna is 10, and Rob is 8."  
  
"Three children? For someone who screws up the ass, that certainly is- eep." Chris  
  
finished with a strange squeak, clapping his hands over his mouth. "I didn't mean that. I  
  
*swear* I didn't mean that. Don't hurt me. Don't fail me. I can't afford to fail English. Oh, I  
  
am *screwed*. . . I mean, no! I'm. . . I'm in trouble! I would *never* say screwed! Oh, fuck  
  
it. . . No! Screw it! NO! DAMMIT! Er, I mean. . ."  
  
"Is he, um, all right?" the lady next to Mr. Cave asked softly.  
  
"He's fine," Mr. Cave murmured back sadly. "He's my son. . . he has Tourette's  
  
Syndrome."  
  
"Ah," the lady said sympathetically. "I'm so sorry." And she went back to reading her  
  
romance novel.  
  
"Chambers, I would ask you to keep your voice down," Mr. Cave said. "I really don't  
  
mind discussing my history with you, but I would appreciate it if it were kept a little quieter."  
  
Chris was shocked to look up and see Mr. Cave's face uncrossed by any frowns. In fact, he  
  
was almost smiling.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," Chris said meekly. "What I mean is, how do you have children?"  
  
"I was married at 16," Mr. Cave began. Chris stopped to cackle at the thought of Mr.  
  
Cave, the teenager. Then he stopped at the thought that he, too, was sixteen. "I became a  
  
father at the age of seventeen. I had a lovely wife, Angela. And then, when I was 25, I  
  
realized that, through no fault of her own, I was simply no longer attracted to her."  
  
"Why do your kids live in Boise?"  
  
"That's where Angie lives. She told me that she wasn't going to move, but I sure as  
  
hell was."  
  
"Burn! I mean. . . oh. . . that's. . . sad. . . "  
  
"Chambers, as I told your "buddy" Lachance, you may tell any of this to whomever  
  
you wish. I would just ask you to bear in mind the thought of me telling an equal number of  
  
people everything I know about you." Chris nodded his understanding.  
  
"Boise!" the attendant yelled, and Mr. Cave stood up. "See you in a few weeks,  
  
Christopher," he said, his voice back to the crisp, steel tones it normally had. "Remember this-  
  
people won't always accept you, but the ones that will not don't matter at all."  
  
"I am not setting the tree up without Chris," Gordie said, slowly and deliberately. "Nor  
  
are any of you."  
  
"I still can't believe your mom and dad left you home alone for two freaking  
  
weeks!" Teddy jeered. "This is infuckingcredible. Nothing like this has ever happened. Nothing  
  
like this will ever happen again!"  
  
Gordie's parents had taken off earlier that day to spend the holidays in the Caribbean.  
  
Being that Gordie and all of his friends were sixteen, they'd decided that he was old enough to  
  
fend for himself and left him alone.  
  
"I can't believe they left over Christmas," Justi said, shaking her head. "That's just  
  
wrong."  
  
"I wanna set up the tree! Tree! Tree! Tree! Tree!" Teddy yelled, running around the  
  
living room doing the Dance of the Winged Tree Monkeys (he'd named it himself).  
  
"It's not that messed up," Gordie replied, craning his head to see over the dancing  
  
Teddy. "I mean, they are my parents. they don't stick around for much."  
  
"All the better for Christmas party throwing!" Teddy cried.  
  
"Breathe, Teddy, breathe."  
  
"When is Chris getting in?" Justi asked, shaking her head in disgust over Teddy, who now looked like he was trying to mate with the carpet.  
  
"Oh shit!"  
  
"You did *not* forget him," Teddy said slowly, prying himself up from the floor.  
  
"Uh. . . well, that depends," Gordie said quickly, grabbing the last letter he'd gotten  
  
from Chris. "What time is it?" Justi checked her watch.  
  
"It's four oh eight," she reported.  
  
"Good! His train gets in at four thirty. Teddy, I'm taking the car-"  
  
"The hell you are! I'll drive!"  
  
"No," Gordie pleaded, remembering the last time he'd ridden with Teddy. Teddy had,  
  
since their shopping expedition, graduated from pulling into every parking lot to pulling into  
  
every parking lot and parking in every parking spot. "PLEASE don't drive."  
  
"I will drive," Justi interrupted, and Teddy stared at her.  
  
"But that's my car, man. . ."  
  
"Teddy! I will no longer heart you if you do not let me drive your goddamned car!"  
  
"You heart me?"  
  
"Well, I heart you NOW, but. . . "  
  
Teddy sighed. "All right, you can take the Pimp-mobile."  
  
"And you must also get me the package of Ho-hos in the kitchen."  
  
  
  
"Good talking to you, Chambers," Mr. Cave said, waving to Chris as he stepped off the  
  
platform and went in the opposite direction of Chris's path.  
  
"Uh, yeah, same here. Not, like, talking to myself, but talking to you, you know, good  
  
talking to you. Not that, you know, it *wouldn't* be, but, you know, sometimes. . . "  
  
"Screw it," Mr. Cave finished for him, and smiled broadly at Chris's grin.  
  
"Exactly, Mr. Cave. That was exactly what I wanted to say."  
  
Mr. Cave waved again and was gone.  
  
Chris, armed against the world with his one suitcase, sat down on a bench near the  
  
station, cradling the beat up, dark blue suitcase close to him as he kept an eye out for Gordie.  
  
There was always that little bit of him insisting that Gordie wasn't coming, that he'd somehow  
  
forgotten the moment that five months of letters and phone calls had been leading up to.  
  
The train emptied and pulled away from the station, and Chris watched families meet  
  
each other again and again. The starry-eyed daughters coming home from college and  
  
meeting their mothers, the scared-looking sons returning from Grandma's and into their  
  
father's arms, the lovers stepping off the train and running into the arms of the one waiting  
  
for them at the station. Gordie had told him that he would probably be late, but he couldn't  
  
help feeling a sting of envy towards everyone there.  
  
December snow was flying, and Chris guessed that was part of the reason that Gordie  
  
was late. He checked his watch. Gordie should have been there ten minutes ago. Ten minutes,  
  
he thought to himself. That's not that bad. You used to be late for class by more than that  
  
every single day. He focused instead on the upcoming holiday.  
  
Christmas had always been his favorite time of year, and he was reminded why when a  
  
group of carolers stepped into the station. Looking down only to glance occasionally at the  
  
uniform hymnbooks all carried, their mouths were opened in a stream of joy. The snow,  
  
freshly fallen into mounds of hair, was melting, and all that remained of the weather were  
  
their red cheeks.  
  
Suddenly, there was a form in front of him. Chris looked up in surprise and sat there  
  
blinking for a few seconds.  
  
"You haven't forgotten what I look like, have you?"  
  
The words seemed to bring him to life. "Gordie!" Chris shrieked, and jumped up and  
  
pulled the littler boy into an embrace. "God, I missed you so much. . . I've got so much to tell  
  
you. . . missed you. . . I. . . "  
  
"Must. . . breathe. . . " Gordie croaked from Chris's bone-crushing bear hug.  
  
"Oh! Oh, God, I'm sorry," Chris said, laughing. "Lachance, you're such a wimp!"  
  
"And yet you find yourself irresistibly drawn to my masculine charms," Gordie said  
  
innocently.  
  
"I especially love the masculine way you bat your eyelashes," Chris commented, smiling  
  
genuinely for the first time in days.  
  
"It's an art, Chris. A true art. Here, let me carry that."  
  
"Hell with you. I'll carry my own damned suitcase."  
  
"It's cause I'm gay, isn't it? Isn't it??"  
  
"God, Gordie, settle down." Chris couldn't keep the smile off of his face, though. All  
  
those nights, staring up at the ceiling, counting the cracks in the wall. All those cold, hurried  
  
days, crossing the windwhipped campus, using his books as a shield, talking to no one,  
  
reaching out to no one, and allowing no one to reach him. And now. . . now it was finally,  
  
finally over. After six months, it was all over, his friends were all here, and he could be himself  
  
again.  
  
He'd realized over the months in New York that the anonymity he'd loved so much at the  
  
start of term was in fact an enemy. In Castle Rock, he had cursed society for looking down at  
  
him as a Chambers kid. But at least there people had known him. He'd had a comfortable role  
  
to play. He could either go down the bad path, and have no one get too worked up about it-  
  
he was, after all, a "Chambers kid"- or he could make something of himself, and be celebrated  
  
as "the Chambers kid who did it right". Anything he wanted to do with his life was either met  
  
with indifference or joy. There was no spite for him anymore in Castle Rock; Eyeball and his  
  
father had used it all up. But in New York. . . in New York there was no other option but to  
  
succeed. The polar opposite of everything he'd ever been told.  
  
He didn't want to go back to New York. The thought struck him, blunt and cold, as  
  
suddenly as if he'd been physically hit. He couldn't believe it had taken him six months away  
  
from everything he knew to figure it out, but it had. Six long, empty months of nothing but  
  
soul-searching. They'd been the most academically educational six months of his life, but isn't  
  
there more to education than academics? Education was the look on a newborn kitten's face  
  
when it opens its eyes for the first time. Education was announcing to Mrs. Mathis that he was  
  
taking the college courses in the fall and savoring the look of pleasant surprise. Education was  
  
Gordie.  
  
"I live in Castle Rock." Five words were all Chris could bring himself to say after thinking  
  
a universe of thoughts. For some reason, words weren't coming to him. While his thought was  
  
crystal clear, he couldn't seem to find coherent sentences. But he wanted so badly to tell  
  
Gordie everything. . .  
  
"Very profound, Chris," Gordie said, grinning, and Chris knew he hadn't understood. How  
  
could he understand, Chris reasoned. He's been protected his whole life. And where the old  
  
Chris would have felt bitterness, the new, worldly, patient Chris felt a surge of love.  
  
He expressed it with a swift kick to Gordie's ankle.  
  
End of Chapter 16  
  
This chapter's really a lot better with the italics in, but, being me *cough* STUPID *cough* I don't know how to make it show up on ff.net, so I did the best I could with the little asterisks.  
  
Last update for a long time, people. Until then, I heart you all! Muchas heartas! 


	17. Teddy's WorldRenowned Snow Bra

Chapter 17  
  
"I love being home."  
"I love you being home, too, Chris," Gordie replied. After about twelve cups of hot chocolate ("More, please, Justi." "What the hell am I, your SCULLERY MAID?"), the two boys were in an overly sentimental mood, curled up together on Gordie's living room sofa.  
"They are so cute," Justi said to Teddy, grinning and pointing at them.  
"Not as cute as Helen," Teddy replied, smirking.  
"Another conquest, Teddy?" Gordie demanded. "God, how do you do it?"  
  
Justi rolled her eyes, bored with the conversation before it began. "Hey, can we set up the tree now?"  
"Yeah!" Teddy said, jumping up from his seat on the floor by the fireplace. "Tree tree tree tree TREE!"  
Chris pulled himself lazily to his feet. "Yes, Gordie, that means moving," he said cheerfully when Gordie curled himself up and squeezed his eyes shut.  
"Don't wanna move."  
"Come on," Chris muttered, and stuck a hand out and tried to pull him up. "Oof!"  
"Yeah, I'm heavier than I look, Chambers," Gordie said, managing to look sleepy and smug at the same time.  
"I haven't worked out in a while-"  
"Chris, cut the bullshit. You never work out," Gordie yawned from the couch.  
"So you're saying I'm just naturally beautiful?" Chris said, laughing. But Gordie remained totally serious when he replied, "Yes. Yes I am."  
"Oh, retch," Justi muttered. "Come on. Can we set up the tree now? Teddy's foaming at the mouth over here. . . "  
"Teddy, I never realized you had so much Christmas spirit."  
"I'm loaded with Christmas spirit."  
"Then let's set up the tree!" Justi screamed. "Come on! That's the only reason I'm here! . . . I mean. . . "  
Gordie rolled his eyes and got up. "Don't leave!"  
"Chris, you dependant freak."  
"Not dependant. Just comfortable."  
Gordie scoffed and disappeared into the garage.  
"You've taken my snugglebun," Chris said, looking over at the swinging garage door. "Justi, I HATE you."  
"Chris, you're the gayest gay person I've ever met," Teddy commented lightly.  
"I'm BACK!" Gordie said, dragging a box behind him just as the buzzer went off in the other room, signaling that a fresh batch of cookies was done. Teddy crossed the room enthusiastically, leaving Justi to go to the kitchen to retrieve the cookies.  
"Yay!"  
"See, Chris, Teddy loves my ass. Teddy's ALL ABOUT my ass."  
"I like my asses feminine, thank you, not. . . searching for a word. . . oh yeah. Hairy. We all saw it that day with the leeches, Gordie."  
Chris shook his head. "You shut up about my boyfriend's hairy ass."  
"I am not hairy," Gordie said indignantly. "I have no idea what you're all talking about."  
"We're talking about the fact that if you shaved your ass, you could make winter coats for all the starving people in Mongolia."  
"Teddy!"  
"Yeah, Teddy, shut up," Chris said, trying not to laugh. "He's not *that* hairy."  
"I am not hairy at all! My ass resembles the white ball in pool."  
Justi, who had just walked into the room with the cookies, let out a shriek. "WHY ARE WE TALKING ABOUT GORDIE'S BUTT?"  
"That's my favorite topic," Teddy muttered dryly. "Believe me, Justi, you're not the only one not happy here."  
"Chris is THRILLED to be discussing my derriere," Gordie said, with a wink.  
"What the HELL is a derriere?"  
"Teddy, what are we talking about?"  
"Gordie's ass."  
"That's a derriere."  
"See, Lachance? Your ass is so messed up they made up a word for it."  
Gordie opened his mouth, changed his mind, and closed it again. "Hey, let's set up the. . . uh. . . "  
Chris turned his head to seek the source of Gordie's faltering. "Jesus Christ, Justi, you didn't. . . God."  
The tree was stood up. Most of the branches were in the proper slots, and Justi was standing on the couch and jumping, holding the top of the tree, trying to set it on the oddly-shaped hunk of plastic posing as a tree.  
"I didn't want to wait for you freaks to stop talking about Gordie's ass, so I decided to get a move on."  
"Weirdo."  
"Because I have Christmas spirit?"  
"No, because you work like a little rodent."  
"Little rodents get Pop-Tarts."  
"We've got cookies."  
Justi flushed. "Well, actually, we HAD cookies."  
Gordie, Chris, and Teddy all looked at the tray full of crumbs and dropped their jaws.  
"You ate them ALL?"  
Justi put her hands on her hips defensively. "Come on now. There were only a dozen. Obviously it wouldn't have been enough for all of us!"  
"You'd think by now we'd have learned not to leave her in charge of food," Teddy whispered to Chris, who just nodded, sick to his stomach at the thought of scarfing all that food.  
"Teddy," Justi directed, her voice business-like, "put the top on the damned tree."  
Teddy had to stand on his tip toes to do it, but the top of the tree was eventually settled into place.  
"Hey, it's a tree!" Chris exclaimed.  
"What the hell did you THINK it was?" Justi demanded.  
"I dunno. . . a large flightless bird, maybe?"  
Justi snarled. "Shut up. It'll look even more tree-like once I smooth all the branches."  
And it did. After about five minutes, Justi had groomed the tree flawlessly. It looked exactly like the sort of the thing one might come across in a forest.  
"Lights! Tinsel! Ornaments! NOW!"  
"Gosh, I guess I never realized what an OBSESSIVE FREAK Justi is about things," Gordie commented to Chris as he pulled out a string of lights.  
"No kidding," Chris agreed. "What a FREAK."  
"If it weren't for me, you'd fall apart and die," Justi replied, only part of her face visible from behind an insanely large pile of tinsel.  
"Would not," Chris replied, just as she 'accidentally' strangled him with a string of tinsel. "Actually, due to the fact that I would be able to breathe, I might even live longer."  
"Doubtful."  
"Unavoidable," Chris replied, and the string of tinsel around his neck was tightened. "I mean, of course not." The noose was released.  
"Look, everyone, Gordie's a Christmas tree!" Teddy exclaimed, stepping back to admire his handiwork. Chris and Justi looked over to see Gordie resembling a multi-colored burrito.  
"Teddy, can you get him OUT of that?"  
"Probably not. That's about six strings of lights."  
"Ordinarily, I wouldn't care, but we. . . we need them for the tree," Justi said to Teddy, gesturing helplessly.  
"Must you constantly destroy my art?" Teddy demanded, yanking one strand off his friend's body.  
"Generally, fine art doesn't involve human sacrifice," Gordie muttered, still completely unable to move.  
"Gordie, shut up, or I won't untie you."  
  
"We set up a kick-ass tree, don't we?" Justi said half an hour later. "Look at that, man."  
It was a lovely tree, covered in shimmering lights and shiny tinsel. Bulbs and ornaments of all shapes, sizes, and colors winked at them, reflecting sparkles from the gleaming lights.  
"We really do," Chris said, pulling Gordie closer to him. For the last ten minutes, the two had been sharing a cup of hot chocolate ("With mini marshmallows? I LOVE you!"), and while Justi was absolutely delighted by this "adorable display of affection", Teddy was, quite frankly, disgusted by any two people acting so "fucking weird displaying affection".  
"Let's play outside!" Justi shouted, suddenly and out of the blue.  
"What?" Chris and Gordie demanded, looking at her like she was out of her mind.  
"I JUST got comfortable!" Chris added, and, as if to prove the point, Gordie snuggled into Chris's neck. "ASShole!"  
"PLEASE?" Justi begged. "No one went outside with me at ALL this week! You guys OWE me!"  
"We do not!"  
"Yes you DO!"  
They all sighed, unable to resist both Justi's pleading and their own temptations to go outside and act like a kid. Within five minutes, they were outside, in full winter gear.  
"Ha!" Justi shouted into the night. "Look!" She piled snow onto Teddy. "I made a snow bra for Teddy! And he's a D-cup!"  
"I've got a hell of a rack," Teddy observed profoundly, looking down at his chest.  
"Snow boobs!" Justi cried enthusiastically.  
"I've always wanted to see what Teddy looked like with snow boobs," Chris remarked dryly. "This is like some sort of dream."  
"Too good to be true," Gordie agreed, barely even glancing up from his snowman.  
"Hey, guys," Justi said, her voice suddenly serious and low, "look."  
There was a figure coming up the lane. The Lachance house was the last on the street. No one ever came down this far unless they were heading to the Lachances'.  
"I think it's Vern," she murmured.  
"Oh, God," Teddy groaned. "In the house. Come on, dammit," he added, trying to drag Justi in.  
"No, hang on," she said, brushing him off. "I want to hear what he has to say."  
"WHY?" Chris demanded. "Why in the world. . . ?"  
"Are you forgetting what he made you do to Gordie?" Teddy asked.  
"Yeah, Gordie's part just isn't right anymore."  
"Aaah!"  
"HAIR! His HAIR part!" Chris screeched. "God, Justi."  
Gordie flipped his head up, and for the first time, Justi noticed that his hair was parted to the opposite side. He flipped up his hair to show her a small white scar. "The hair won't part over the scar," he explained.  
"He's getting closer," Chris muttered.  
"Hey, guys!" As if on cue, Vern started yelling for them. "It's me!"  
Justi elbowed Chris sharply. "Come ON," she whispered.  
"Hey," she said, as they drew nearer to Vern. And finally, all five of them were standing face to face for the first time in over three months.  
  
"I got something I'd like to say," Vern started.  
"Really," Teddy said sarcastically.  
"Teddy." Justi said the one word, but it shut Teddy up better than a thousand word reprimand could have.  
"It's the day before Christmas Eve," Vern began again, glancing uneasily at Chris and Teddy. "I didn't want a Christmas to go by without. . . you know, without saying I was sorry."  
"And. . . ?" Chris prompted.  
"And. . . and I am. Sorry, that is."  
"Sorry for WHAT?" Teddy asked pointedly.  
Vern sighed, as if he didn't want to get into this. "Sorry for being a jealous boyfriend. Sorry for thinking things like I did. Sorry for acting on my feelings. Sorry for hurting all of you."  
"Gordie's part isn't right anymore!" Teddy cried suddenly. "I didn't touch your. . . did I. . . ?" Vern asked, floundering. Gordie smiled. "No, Vern, he means my HAIR part." "Oh. I'm. . . I'm sorry about your part. I'm sorry, everyone." "Apology accepted," Justi said, drawing Vern into a hug and somehow managing to elbow Teddy at the same time. "Right?" she grunted to Teddy and Chris.  
"Sure," they grumbled. "Whatever."  
Gordie was the next to hug Vern. Teddy and Chris refrained, opting for a simple handshake.  
"Hey, come help me with a snowman that'll kick Chris and Gordie's snowman's ASS," Justi said, gesturing to all the snow.  
"Okay," Vern said timidly, following her.  
"I don't LIKE this," Teddy said fiercely. "Why is he HERE? What is he DOING? I don't want him to hurt Justi!"  
"I don't want him here either," Chris replied, matching the fire in Teddy's voice, his eyes burning. "This is trouble."  
"Let's kick his ass," Teddy said, smacking a fist into the palm of his hand. "Wecould take him."  
"No," Gordie said softly. "I mean, you can if you want to, but, Chris, I don't want you to."  
"WHY?" Chris demanded.  
"I dunno," Gordie said, shrugging. "I guess. . . I'm a pretty good judge of character most of the time. I just thought his apology was pretty sincere. . . I don't think he was half-assed about it. That's all."  
"One chance," Teddy grunted. "And if he blows it with ANY of you. . . or me. . . he's SCREWED."  
"AMEN," Chris agreed forcefully.  
"Look!" Justi's cheerful voice pierced their conversation, and they all turned to look at a slightly misshapen snowman. "I mean, obviously he's got some disability that prevents him from running and playing with the other snowmen, but he could kick your snowman's ass."  
"I'm sure," Chris said, smiling at her.  
"He could!" Vern chimed in, and for a moment, it was the four boys again, twelve going on thirteen, down by the river, swapping smokes and telling stories. They all felt it, but each thought he was the only one. The little spark was back.  
In the end, it was Teddy who bridged the awkward gap. "Hey, Vern," he began, slightly awkward. "Wanna see the Dance Of The Winged Tree Monkeys?"  
  
End of Chapter 17  
  
So, I accidentally deleted my file, so now I'm stuck rewriting all the chapters I was going to post. The next chapter will probably be up by Saturday at noon or so, and I'll probably get nineteen up by Saturday night. Sunday night should see twenty. If all goes well.  
  
Does anyone see Teddy and Justi?  
  
Anyone?  
  
Muchas Heartas! 


	18. It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

Chapter 18  
  
Gordie and Chris spent Christmas Eve alone at Gordie's house. Mrs. Chambers was working- there wasn't really any reason for Chris to spend it anywhere else.  
"I love you, you know that?" Chris said, looking down into a cup of eggnog. He and Gordie were sitting on the couch. The living room was dark, lit only by the Christmas tree and the fire in the hearth in front of them.  
"I know." Gordie smiled. "I love you too."  
Chris closed his eyes. "I feel like I'm in some shitty old romance movie."  
"Why?" Gordie sat up, trying to figure out if he should be insulted.  
Chris pulled his back down and rested his head on Gordie's shoulder. "I didn't mean it like that. I just meant that this seems. . . "  
"Surreal?"  
"Yeah. That."  
They were quiet for the next few minutes, but it was a good kind of quiet. A sweet kind of quiet. The kind of quiet where the only thing you're thinking about is how much you love the other person.  
"Hey, Gordie, can I give you your present?"  
"What?"  
"Your Christmas present, moron."  
"You got me a present?"  
Chris smiled. "Of course I did."  
"Oh. Well, yeah, I guess. Here, let me go get yours." Gordie shot up and ran up the stairs. Chris watched him go, and then bolted for the door. He picked up the bag he'd carried over and carefully set it down on the coffee table when he re-entered the living room. Pushing back the canvas, he pulled a gift-wrapped box from it and set the bag on the floor just as Gordie came walking into the room carrying a considerably larger box.  
"I'm getting a size complex," Chris remarked, looking at his present.  
"Eh, at least I can be bigger than you SOMETIMES."  
"Now, Gordie, that was uncalled for."  
"Shut up," Gordie commanded, grinning. Chris laughed.  
"Open my present, smart ass," he said, handing his box to Gordie. Gordie smiled at him and sat down on the couch. Chris sat down next to him, looking anxiously over his shoulder. Gordie slit along the taped seams and unfolded the wrapping paper.  
"Oh, wow," Gordie breathed, taking in the intricately designed album cover. "This thing is huge. . . what the. . . " He trailed off, not knowing what else to do other than to open it. The first picture had Gordie and Chris, about three years old, sitting on a fence post and laughing together. Gordie gasped.  
"Chris, did you. . . oh, Jesus, this is wonderful." Gordie flipped through the book, grinning. "Look, you remember this? Your mom took us down to the river for camping. . . your dad was away for the week, and we camped out in tents for days. . . you remember, Vern ate all the bacon before any of us got up?"  
"Yeah," Chris agreed, laughing. "So we shoved him in the river."  
"AFTER we shoved Teddy in because we thought he was Vern," added Gordie.  
"Teddy was after us for months after that."  
"Look, this is when we first met Justi," Gordie commented, pointing to a picture of Vern's twelfth birthday. "Why was she there? Some kind of. . . ?"  
"She used to live down the street from Vern's aunt, remember?"  
"Oh yeah! Yeah, and she had such short hair that we thought she was a boy for the first couple hours!"  
Chris laughed. "I think we should tell her that."  
"She could kick my ass," Gordie muttered, shuddering.  
"I love this picture," Chris said, pointing to a picture of six year old Gordie covered in ice cream. "You were the messiest eater. You were so cute." Gordie looked at Chris for a long time until he looked up to meet his eyes. "What?"  
"Chris, this is the best Christmas present anyone's ever gotten me. Where did you get all these?"  
"I've been saving these forever, thinking there'd be a use for them someday."  
"These pictures are beautiful. Thank you so much." Gordie cocked his head and looked at Chris, trying to think of what he could say that would express what he was feeling right now.  
"No problem," Chris said quietly.  
"It's like holding our lives in my hands," Gordie remarked, flipping through the book. "This is just amazing. Seriously, Chris, no one's ever given me something that meant so much."  
"Gordie, shut the hell up," Chris said, because he knew that if he said anything else, it would come out all mushy and stupid. He didn't want to tarnish anything, and somehow what he'd said wasn't nearly as harsh as an overly emotional sentiment.  
Gordie understood exactly, but couldn't resist the urge to hug him and whisper "I love you" into his ear.  
"Merry Christmas, Gordo," Chris murmured.  
"Oh! That reminds me! Your gift!" Gordie pulled away, slightly embarrassed. He looked so sheepish that Chris couldn't help but laugh.  
"Here," Gordie said softly, handing to box to Chris. Chris pulled the ribbon away and ripped off the brown paper, revealing a long cardboard box. He lifted the lid and gasped.  
"Oh, *shit*, Gordie. . ." Lifting the guitar, he ran his finger along the side. "This. . . shit, man, you really outdid yourself. SHIT."  
"I think I was a much more gracious gift-receiver than you," Gordie sniffed in mock-pompousness.  
"I'm sorry, Gord, it's just. . . wow. . . I can't believe this. Thank you so much. . . this is so lame."  
"What?" Gordie asked, scrunching his face in confusion. "There was so much bull-shit in that sentence. Are you trying to convey something here?"  
"I can't think of anything to say. . . I know what I want to say, but I'm so. . . "  
"Inarticulate? Incoherent? Speechless?"  
"Um, yes." His face softened. "Gordie. . . "  
"I heart you."  
"I heart you too."  
"So hey," Gordie said, reclining back onto the sofa lazily, "play me something."  
"What do you want to hear?"  
Gordie shrugged. "Something. Anything."  
"That narrows it down a LOT, man, thanks."  
"Something soft. Something pretty. But not anything overly obnoxious."  
Chris started strumming something, and Gordie recognized the song almost immediately. A Beatles tune.  
"Blackbird singing in the dead of night. . . take these broken wings and learn to fly. . ."  
At first Chris's voice quavered, but as he got deeper into the song, it acquired a rich, mellow tone that Gordie fell in love with almost immediately. When Chris finally set down the instrument, Gordie's knees felt like jelly.  
"You played my song."  
"I know."  
"I LOVE that song."  
"I know."  
"Man, you're the best."  
"I know."  
"I love you."  
"I know."  
"I know you know."  
"I love you too."  
"I know."  
"Gordie?"  
"Yeah?"  
"You wanna get me another glass of eggnog?"  
"Um, not really."  
"Will you anyway?"  
"No."  
"Not even if I kiss you when you get back?"  
"You'll kiss me anyway."  
"Keep dreaming, asshole."  
"You can't RESIST me!"  
"Gordie, you're the one that can't resist ME."  
"You're right," Gordie agreed mildly, studying Chris before he kissed him again. "I'll go get you some more eggnog."  
"Gordie, what the hell is wrong with you?"  
"What do you mean?"  
"You're acting all. . . weird."  
"I'm high on life."  
"WHAT?"  
"Yeah, that was gay."  
"You're high on cheap crack."  
"Oh, yeah. You're right. That's me, man, Castle Rock's biggest crackhead." Gordie shook his head, laughed, and disappeared into the kitchen.  
"Thank you," Chris called, craning his neck around to peer over the couch.  
"You're welcome," Gordie replied, coming to stand behind him, holding two glasses of eggnog.  
"Gimme," Chris laughed, trying futilely to grab his glass.  
"Say please."  
"Never. I want my eggnog."  
"Say please."  
"Snowball's chance in hell. Give me my damned glass," Chris demanded, laughing. But instead of feeling the cold, hard glass in his hands, he felt a warm, thick liquid-y sensation all over his head and neck.  
"Oh my God, you dumped it on me."  
"Of course I did. You didn't say please, you bastard."  
Chris's jaw dropped in pleasant surprise. "I can't believe you," he said, wrestling the glass away from Gordie.  
"Hey now, put that glass down and no one gets hurt."  
"What are you going to do, huh, Lachance?" Chris asked, holding the glass high above his head, where the much shorter Gordie couldn't reach.  
"This."  
"AAAH!" Chris jumped back. "I cannot BELIEVE you just bit me!"  
Gordie sneered.  
"I haven't been bitten since about the second grade!"  
"Well now you have."  
"This calls for desperate measures!" Chris cried, and yanked Gordie toward him and dumped the other glass over his head.  
"Mature, Chambers! Mature!"  
"You were the immature one first!"  
"You didn't have to follow my example! I was testing to see if YOU were mature!"  
"And now we're both here, dripping wet with eggnog," Chris said, smirking. "What does THAT tell you about our maturity levels?"  
"That we're just right for each other."  
"There you go with that. . . and there's really no other way to put this. . . GAYNESS again! What's up with you tonight, man?"  
"Like I said, I'm high on life."  
"Gordie, if you don't have anything that's not stupid to say, shut up."  
"Nothing I say is stupid. You should be kissing the ground I walk on."  
In the end, Chris settled for simply kissing him. It seemed simpler.  
  
"I love Christmas," Gordie said, curled up on the couch later that night. The two had gone into the kitchen, cleaned up, and changed shirts, but each still smelled distinctly like eggnog.  
"I love it too."  
"I love everything about it."  
"Yeah," Chris agreed, and came over to the couch to sit by Gordie.  
"It's so great that you're here," Gordie said, and scooted over to lie down next to Chris.  
"Yeah," Chris said, looking at the fire. He loved fire. It was so powerful, so final. He liked things that were final. He didn't like to have to deal with things that were uncertain. He liked things to be cut and dry. His relationship with Gordie scared him a little bit. Gordie was the farthest thing from final. He sometimes wondered why he wasn't with someone who was less spontaneous. Someone who didn't scare him. Someone who wasn't so full of life. And then he remembered Gordie coming all the way to New York to get him. He remembered eggnog fights. And he knew exactly why he was with Gordie.  
  
End of Chapter 18 


	19. Scattergories

It's taken me so long to update. I've been away at my mom's for a lot longer than we originally expected. But I'm finally back! Yay! So, without further ado. . .  
  
Chapter 19  
"I HATE Scattergories," Justi muttered through clenched teeth. "I mean, what kind of crackhead game is this? Things found in a FRIDGE? What the hell kind of question is that?"  
"Yeah, that does give you an unfair advantage," Teddy said, grinning.  
"Shut the hell up!" she cried, and hit him with a pillow.  
"God, Justi," Chris said, "if you don't want to play, just say so."  
Justi looked up and glared at him. "I will resort to hitting you with this pillow to get you to understand a seemingly simple concept, Chambers," she growled menacingly. "I." - thump- "Don't." -thump- "Want." -thump- "To." -thump- "Play." -thump- "This." -thump- "Stupid." -thump- "Assed." -thump- "Game." -thump- "DAMMIT."  
"Oh, BURN," Teddy crowed. "What now, Chambers?"  
"Well, what DO you want to do?" Chris asked, in a frightening parody of patience.  
"Uh, eat food?"  
"There's no more food, Justi."  
"How can there be no more food?"  
"It has something to do with the fact that you've wanted to eat food for the last six hours."  
Gordie, in an attempt to bring his friends closer together, was hosting a Christmas party at his house. Although not technically Christmas, Boxing Day, everyone figured, was close enough to pass off as a holiday.  
"You're telling me there's no more food?" Justi repeated, in a voice a little smaller and less sure than it had been.  
"And I'm also telling you that that is your fault."  
"BURN!"  
"Teddy, who TAUGHT you that phrase?" Justi demanded, wheeling around to look at him. "Because if you say that one more time, there WILL be food- there will be fresh, roasted Teddy spleen sitting on the table, ready to be carved."  
Vern, who was trying desperately not to do anything wrong, couldn't help but pull a face. The rest were a little more vocal about their protests.  
"What the hell would you do with my SPLEEN, you sick freak?" Teddy asked. "I mean, my God, woman, do you even know what the fuck a spleen DOES?"  
"I don't know what a brine shrimp does, but I like THEM just fine."  
"You've never had a brine shrimp," Gordie interrupted. "Just the other day you were telling me that your lifelong ambition was to eat a brine shrimp for the first time and then write a book about it."  
"THAT'S your life goal?" Teddy repeated. "THIS is why we play Scattergories. We play so that we can see past what we'll have for lunch today."  
"What, you wouldn't buy a book called "Digesting the Brine"?"  
Teddy thought about that for a little while before relenting. "Eh, I probably would. Brine's a funny word."  
"Yeah! See! I'll make millions and then you'll come crawling to me on your sorry ass and THEN we'll see who's laughing!"  
"You can't crawl on your ass, Justi," Chris put in helpfully.  
"You can crabwalk," Justi informed, "and dammit, that's good enough for me."  
Gordie shrugged. "Okay," he muttered, grinning at her. "But I still won this round."  
"And the round before that. And the round before that," Teddy continued. "Justi, who won the round before that? Help me out?"  
"Gordie, I think it was?"  
"Oh yeah! Gordie!" Teddy looked at him with a death glare. "I'm with Justi. I'd rather be eating."  
Justi grinned. "I'd rather be eating. I'm going to get a shirt that says that. I'd rather be eating."  
"This just in: before long you'll be too fat to wear shirts," Teddy notified her.  
"Ouch," Gordie muttered. He, Chris, and Vern all instinctively scooted back- just in time to avoid the faster-than-sound buzzer being thrown at Teddy from across the playing circle.  
"Ow." Teddy put his hand up to his forehead. "That hurt, darling, but I'll take you back."  
"Oh, Ted. Be mine."  
"Gladly, dearest."  
"I'd walk a dozen seas and swim a dozen suns to be with you, love."  
"You moron. I refuse to marry you now."  
"WHAT? You promised I could have your children!"  
"What is going on here?" Chris asked, not the only one thinking that.  
"I dunno," Justi shrugged, then pointed at Teddy. "He started it. Blame him."  
"What, for both of you being completely insane?"  
"Yeah. He was born before me. He could have rushed over and removed the insane part of my brain when I was born so that it wouldn't grow."  
"Justi, if he'd done that, you wouldn't even have enough brain to function."  
"Ha! Funny! Only, not." Justi glared at Gordie and Chris. "I'll leave you two to your gay love affair now," she grumbled. "I have a higher calling."  
"We're out of food," Gordie screeched.  
"No you're not. I hid a box of crackers in the pantry. Come on, Teddy. Let's leave these three idiots to their own devices. Vern, I hope you like handcuffs." Vern visibly recoiled, managing to completely miss any joking that might have been in her voice.  
"Well, they're off," Gordie observed, staring at the game space that was once his kingdom.  
"Indeed," Chris said wisely. "Ten bucks says we go in there and they're fucking like animals."  
Gordie stared at him. "Is it like, sick perverted creature night around here or something? I must have missed the flier."  
"Every night is sick creature night," Chris said cheerfully, standing and pulling Gordie to his feet as well. "I think we should check up on the two most-likely-to-fornicate sick creatures before we're dealing with matters bigger than ourselves."  
They tiptoed, up against the wall, until they got to the kitchen door, and peeked around the door frame.  
Gordie's jaw dropped.  
"Oh my God, you were right," he whispered fiercely to Chris, who just smiled and nodded. They were looking at Justi and Teddy spread over a table and kissing like none of them had ever seen anyone kiss.  
"There will BE no fornication on this table!" Gordie screeched, jumping out into the kitchen. "Teddy! Stop trying to impregnate strange women on the surface that I regularly EAT off of!" The last part made him shiver, and he cringed.  
"Hey," a breathless Justi contested weakly. "I'm not strange."  
"You're right, you're not," Teddy said.  
"Teddy! YOU! Are! Still! Laying! On! A! Woman! On! My! Table! KINDLY get off before I am forced to KICK SOME ASS!"  
In spite of himself, Chris had to laugh.  
"You think I couldn't open up a can of whoop-ass on Teddy?" Gordie asked, wheeling around to face Chris. At Chris's face, he waved a hand. "Never mind. Just. . . never mind." He turned back around. "Theodore Jude Duchamp. Justine Evelyn Zegers. If the two of you do not get off my table RIGHT NOW there will be HELL to pay."  
"Gordie hell," Teddy whispered in Justi's ear, and she had to laugh.  
"Don't laugh!"  
Teddy sighed heavily and climbed off of Justi, rolling rather gracelessly off the table and landing with a thud.  
"Oh, dear. Did that hurt?" Justi inquired, peering down at him.  
"No," Teddy started. "I-"  
"He's MANLY," Chris finished for him. "Aren't you, Teddy?"  
"I am."  
Justi giggled.  
"Into the living room!" Gordie announced, trying to herd all of his friends into the other room, where he could once again reign as the king of word games.  
  
"So. . ." Chris began, staring at Justi and Teddy, when all had relocated to Gordie's couches. "How long has this little. . . fling been going on?"  
"Eh, a month?" Justi asked, looking to Teddy for clarification. He nodded.  
"WHAT?!" they all demanded.  
"A MONTH, and no one could come forward and tell us?" Gordie demanded. "I am shocked. My God. My world is coming down around me."  
"Gordie, shut up."  
"This from the man whose bodily fluids are probably all over my kitchen."  
"Gordie, it is physically impossible for any of my. . . fluids to be anywhere in your house. Except maybe in my pants. And furthermore, I don't think you'd know a bodily fluid if it injected itself into your ass."  
"I dunno," Chris said, raising an eyebrow.  
"OK, that's more of this conversation than I ever want to hear," Justi said loudly. "Did you SEE that weather today, Vern?"  
"Okay, okay, we're done with the argument over Gordie's naïvely virgin way of looking at the world," Teddy announced.  
"Good," Justi murmured, shuddering. "Come! Into the kitchen! There's still some eggnog in there!"  
  
"Fast forward twenty years. Justi and Teddy are living together with a thousand kids. Vern is some junkyard owner hermit. And I'm a lawyer. And that's the way it'll go," Chris said confidently, half an hour later.  
"And what am I, your concubine?" Gordie demanded shrilly. "Some sort of male prostitute?"  
"Eh," Chris slurred. Vern had gone home; the rest of them were slightly drunk on eggnog- some more than others.  
"Do you know how old we'll be in twenty years?" Justi asked. "We'll be hiring people to trim the hair from our ears."  
"What?"  
"Yeah," Justi said, reclining against Teddy. "As it happens, I have very hairy ears."  
"My ears," Teddy informed, looking down at her, "are very pristine."  
"Teddy Duchamp, the Hairless Wonder."  
"Ha!" Chris jeered, standing up. "And one day, I'll write a song. I dunno. . . I'll be famous. I'll go on the road. You two can be my roadies," he said, pointing at Justi and Teddy.  
"And what am I, your-"  
"Yes, you can be my male prostitute."  
Gordie rolled his eyes, tried to stand, decided it wasn't worth the effort, and sat back down.  
"Gordie, that was quite a show."  
"What?"  
"It's like being at a Chippendales show."  
"My sitting, standing, and sitting?" "Yes."  
Gordie shook his head. "Nah. THIS is like being at a Chippendales  
show. WHOOO!"  
Justi covered her eyes. "Teddy, help. . . my whole life I've prayed that I'd never see Chris and Gordie drunk enough to make standing and sitting a Chippendales show. . . "  
Chris looked at her like she was an idiot. "We're not BOTH doing the Chippendales," he said, speaking slowly so as not to confuse her, "only one of us."  
"The fact that you're enjoying it is quite enough to incriminate you."  
"Ah."  
"Yeah, that's pretty gay," Teddy agreed, nose wrinkled. "Please stop before we have to assassinate you and then fake political correctness."  
Justi sighed. "Thank you, Teddy. It's a good thing I have you around. . . you're soo much better at being a blunt asshole than I am." "You'll come around," he muttered contentedly. "In the meantime, I heart you anyway." He bent down to kiss her and she wrapped her arms around his neck lazily. "They HEART each other!" Chris exclaimed. "This calls for a celebration!" Ordinarily, Justi would have looked up, but two things kept her kissing him: one, she knew they had no more food to celebrate with, and two, this wasn't just anybody she was kissing. It was Teddy. And because it was Teddy, she ran a hand through his hair and simply kissed him harder.  
  
End Of Chapter 19  
  
Yay! I updated! Heart for me. . . Heart for everyone! I'm just really happy to be back here with a computer. I'll get the other chapters up soon. Now my sister is bugging me to get off, so I'll be back!  
  
Heart! 


	20. The Breakfast Club

This one's the last chapter *sob, weep, moan, sob*. Yep, the VERY LAST CHAPTER! I told my dad about an hour ago that I was finished with my story, and he wrinkles his nose, looks at me, and says, "Well God, Caroline. What are you going to do with your life now? Does this mean you're going to actually eat dinner with us now?"  
  
Chapter 20  
  
The next day, Chris woke up in Gordie's bed. That was the first thing that sunk in. The second was that Gordie was nowhere to be found.  
Peering over the side of the bed to look at the clock that Gordie kept on the floor, he was met with the image of the dark-haired boy curled up inside a hunter-green sleeping bag. He was sleeping peacefully.  
"Mouthbreather," Chris murmured, grinning, then pushed the blankets off of himself and shuffled over to where Gordie was sleeping. "Boo."  
Gordie's eyes flew open. "When someone's sleeping," he muttered sleepily, putting a hand over his eyes to shield from the morning sun, "you leave them there unless you are bleeding to the point that you can no longer see clearly enough to bandage yourself and go the hell back to sleep."  
"Gordie, your words just left me bleeding inside."  
"They make band-aids for that," Gordie mumbled, and pulled the sleeping bag over his head in another desperate attempt to squeeze all the sleep out of the day.  
"No. They make Gordies for that."  
Gordie's head appeared over the top of the bag. One sleepy eye opened. "You think?"  
"Yep. Bandage me, guru of peace."  
"You're a contributing member of society. Now go the hell to bed."  
"That didn't really help me. My self esteem lies shattered in pieces on the ground."  
"Chris, it's too early for you to be acting like a moose on heroin."  
"Gordie, if you were more awake, you'd know that moose can't talk."  
"If you'd let me sleep, I'd be more awake."  
"If you were more awake, you'd realize just how much sense you're making right now."  
"Eh," Gordie whined. "Stop making sense. If you really want me out of bed, start making coffee."  
"Oh, all right," Chris grumbled, and headed downstairs.  
Half an hour later, Gordie, bleary-eyed but somewhat more aware than he had been, stumbled down to the kitchen, where, to his horror, he found Chris trying to fry coffee using a mug.  
"You can't do coffee on the stove!"  
"Why the hell not? It's hot, isn't it?"  
"Well, yeah, but you use a coffee maker."  
"Maybe. . . maybe I should check on the eggs." Gordie got a sinking feeling as Chris's eyes flickered to the oven.  
"You made eggs in the oven?"  
"Well. . . um. . . yes. . . " Chris opened the oven to see a flaming ball of charred. . . something.  
"What did you DO?" Gordie asked, trying for the life of him to be alert and not yawn as he extinguished the fire.  
"Nothing! I put the eggs on the plate, and then I put them in the oven!"  
"You used my mom's good china?" Gordie asked, eyeing the smoking ball of ashes critically.  
"Of course not! Gordie, give me a little credit here! I used a PAPER plate."  
"You tried to scramble eggs in the oven with a paper plate?"  
"I didn't scramble them. . . I just kind of put them from the fridge onto the plate into the oven."  
"Did you CRACK them?" Gordie asked, an eyebrow arched.  
"Technically speaking, no."  
"Wow, Chris. Maybe from now on you better let me cook."  
"Okay."  
Gordie found his way over to Chris and nudged his way into his arms. "It's too early to do anything," he murmured from inside the safety of Chris's shoulder.  
"Gordie, when did you become such a lazy little girl?"  
"About five years ago. I'm waiting on you so that I can actually get some sleep on vacations. That's what normal people do, you know."  
"And just how would you know?"  
"Uh. . . "  
"Yeah. That's what I thought."  
"At least I can cook."  
Chris hugged him tighter. "Yes. This way we won't starve when we're up at insane hours of the day."  
"I love you, you know that? Even when you're using my oven to burn up my eggs on paper plates, I love you."  
"Well, that's good, because I'm not going to use the oven of someone I don't love."  
"You can get in trouble for that."  
"That's why I practice my experiments of death at your house."  
"It all makes sense now."  
"Let's run away."  
Gordie pulled away so that he could look up at Chris. "What?"  
"We're graduating this spring. Let's live in a tiny little box behind the community college, go there for two years, then move to the city and get a bigger box."  
"Actually, I'd like to move someplace slightly less. . . brown."  
"What do you have against brown?"  
"Nothing. It's just that you'd inevitably try to make me breakfast sometime and burn down the box. And then where would we be?"  
Chris pulled Gordie back into a hug. "Good point," he muttered, his chin resting on the top of Gordie's head. "But we have to go somewhere."  
"Like I said, I'd rather go someplace that doesn't have such a high danger of being burned down every time you decide to try your hand at the culinary arts."  
  
"Gordie, your faith in me is astounding."  
"Thank you. In all seriousness, Chris, why are you thinking about this?"  
"Thinking about what?"  
"We don't graduate for another six months, and you're already thinking about what we're going to do afterwards. That's not like you."  
"I dunno. I just don't want to be one of those bums with a law degree and a box on the street."  
"Good thinking."  
"Thanks."  
For the next few minutes, neither of them moved. "Can we just stay here all day?" Chris asked.  
"You're the one who woke me up so we could do something constructive."  
"This IS constructive."  
"No it isn't. I'm hungry. Your failed attempt at breakfast has made me hungrier."  
"Maybe if you'd gotten up so you could do something constructive we'd be eating now."  
"I'm sorry for being a lazy midget. Can I make food now?"  
"Please," Chris concurred, releasing Gordie from his hug.  
For the next few minutes, Chris watched Gordie putter around the kitchen, collecting eggs and cheese, pots and pans.  
"What are you doing?" he finally asked.  
Gordie looked at him like he was stupid. "Making an omelette, dumbass."  
"Well where's all the stuff?"  
"All what stuff?"  
"You know, the stuff!"  
"What damn stuff?"  
"Everything you put IN an omelette!"  
"What do YOU put in an omelette?"  
"Mushrooms. Peppers. Sausage. You know, STUFF!"  
Gordie wrinkled his nose. "Oh. You're one of THOSE people."  
"What do you mean, those people?"  
"Those weird people who corrupt the eggs."  
"What do you put in an omelette?"  
"Cheese."  
Chris raised an eyebrow. "That's not an omelette. That's some pussy thing that gay short people eat."  
Gordie put a hand on his hip. "Hmm. Gay. Short. Who do we know who fits both of those categories?"  
Chris laughed. "Oh yeah."  
Gordie went back to frying eggs. "As long as I am cooking, there will be no corruption of eggs going on. By the way, Chris, note the pan."  
"I'm also noting the lack of paper plates in your cooking."  
"Yup."  
"Real men use paper plates."  
"If you'll notice, real men also have their wives cook for them."  
"The shorter, darkhaired boy assumes the role of the female," Chris intoned in the manner of a Discovery Channel announcer. "The rest of the clan rejoices."  
"Yeah," Gordie murmured, grinning and turning around to flip the omelette. "Almost done."  
"Good. I'm famished."  
"Normal people can go more than eight hours without food without having convulsions."  
"I'm not having convulsions. I'm expressing a deep-rooted hunger."  
"Well, here," Gordie said, reaching for a plate, finding one, and sliding the omelette onto it. "Do you think you can manage to choke it down?"  
Chris smiled. "I'm sure I'll love it," he said, taking the plate with him to sit down at the table.  
"Good," Gordie muttered, coming over to sit next to him. "I worked damn hard making that. It's like my spawn or something."  
Chris looked down at the plate and raised an eyebrow. "I don't wanna eat it now."  
Rolling his eyes, Gordie scoffed and clarified. "I didn't mean SPAWN spawn. I meant like labor-of-love spawn. And that you better like it, veggies or no."  
Chris bit into a forkful. "Mmm. Yummy."  
"Yummy. This from the guy who just a few minutes ago called ME gay."  
"It IS yummy."  
"I'm sure."  
"Aren't you going to have any?"  
"Nah, I'll get some cereal." He stood up and headed over to the pantry.  
"Okay. So, hey, do you have any plans today?"  
"Nope. My parents are coming home tomorrow, so I'll probably just stick around here destroying any traces of evidence of the fact that I didn't stay locked in the house alone all week."  
"Sounds riveting."  
"By nightfall I'll probably have passed out from all the fun I'll be having." Gordie sat down at the table again, this time with a bowl of Cheerios and a spoon. "Why?"  
"Can I stick around here? Crash at your place again tonight?"  
"Yeah." Gordie wrinkled his brow. "Why?"  
Chris shrugged. "My mom's going to my grandma's up in Greenview until Tuesday and I just don't wanna go home to an empty house, that's all."  
"Oh. Sure, man."  
"Thanks."  
"No problem."  
Finished with his omelette, Chris reclined in his chair, looking over at Gordie, who was still hungrily wolfing down cereal. "So, man, Teddy and Justi. What do you think?"  
"I think Justi's the group whore."  
Chris burst out laughing. "Eh, so it took her a few guys to decide which one she liked best. That's okay, I guess."  
"Seriously? I think it's really cool." He put down his spoon. "Teddy needed a girl, anway," he added thoughtfully after a few seconds.  
"Yeah," Chris agreed, "and they're pretty perfect for each other."  
"Just like us!" Gordie said brightly, chomping down another mouthful of Cheerios.  
"You know, a part of me tells me I should kiss you for that, but the other part just looks at the Cheerios on your lip and the milk that you've somehow managed to get all over your face and says 'No, Chris. No.' "  
"Thanks. That's unconditional love for you."  
"I DO love you! I don't love your eating habits."  
"Who's the pussy gay guy now, huh?"  
"I'm not pussy, I just don't want your regurgitated chunks all over me."  
"Wimp!"  
"Pig!"  
They looked at each other and laughed. But a moment later, Chris's face softened and he said, "Hey, I do love you, you know."  
"I know," Gordie replied, as if discussing the weather.  
"I feel like I don't say it enough."  
Gordie shrugged. "That's okay. I know you do."  
Chris smiled. "Aw."  
Gordie nodded. "Yeah, I can be pretty sweet sometimes. Not to mention the fact that I'm totally suave."  
"Totally," Chris agreed, grinning, and leaned over so that he could kiss Gordie, Cheerios and all.  
Normally not one to break the mood, Gordie couldn't resist letting loose with an almost hysterical gale of laughter in the middle of the kiss.  
"What?" Chris demanded, looking highly affronted.  
"This is so absurd," Gordie explained. "We're sitting here in my kitchen eating food and all of a sudden you tell me you love me and you kiss me."  
"Well, I do," Chris said, confused.  
"I know," Gordie assured, nodding. "And I'm so glad."  
  
THE END!  
  
Aww. That came out a lot sweeter than I'd planned. Okay, it really feels weird now. . .  
  
Now that it's the end, I want to thank all my reviewers. I know I should have done that earlier, but hey.  
  
I also want to tell moonriverandme, probably my most faithful reviewer, that I absolutely love your story. I don't know if I've already said this, but I can't review stories anymore (I think it has something to do with my Internet firewall. I dunno). I just wanted to tell you, since I can't review it where you're supposed to, that I love it. I didn't want you to think "Hey! I've been reviewing her story for forever! Has she even READ mine? That BITCH!"  
  
Heart to the world,  
  
The Masked Penguin 


End file.
